Ropewalk Community Garden
Ropewalk community garden is an urban growing space created in 1998 on a disused school playground. The land is owned by Southampton City Council (Housing Management) who have agreed current use for minimum of 10 years. Working with the local community, tEC has ensured that the land is registered as a green leisure/recreational space on the City Development Plans.
A constituted group `The friends of Ropewalk Community Garden` has been formed. Five group members have received some training in organic gardening and committee skills. tEC support has meant that the views of the local community were included in the physical development of the garden by SRB, NRA and Sure-start funding programmes.
The Garden has hosted educational workshops, activities and fun days across generational/cultural groups. An event can attract around 200 local residents. Past highlights include creating hanging baskets for neighbouring streets, community consultation events and the creation of a key sculpture by a local artist. Eight people who were involved with the group are now either in environmentally related employment or education. Six ex-community probation servers who served official time on the garden have gone on to become volunteers involved in this or similar projects around Southampton.
