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Get your hands dirty at the new Nine Elms gardening club

Green-fingered residents are being encouraged to join a new community gardening club in north Battersea.

Big Lunch web2

Published on
July 7, 2016

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Local people are being invited to join a new community gardening club in Nine Elms as the area’s regeneration programme brings north Battersea’s horticultural heritage back into bloom.

Wandsworth Council’s Rose Community Centre, which took delivery of massive planters, a selection of herbs and flowers and tonnes of soil last week, will form the central focus for the new club.

Its members will meet once a week at the Ascalon Street site to shape the new garden with the support of experienced horticultural experts. The club is free to join and refreshments and nibbles will be provided.

Local schools and other community groups are also being invited to get involved and to learn more about sustainable urban gardening and food production and learning about and sharing in the area’s rich horticultural heritage.

The project is a joint effort between Wandsworth Council, Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) and developer Vinci St Modwen (VSM) – all members of the Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership, with the help of local volunteers.

Many of the materials have been donated by local businesses and organisations including five tonnes of soil courtesy of the Northern line Extension team. Vauxhall-based shipping firm Martin Speed supplied marine ply shipping crates and a carpenter to turn them into giant planters and window boxes. CGMA has provided seedlings to get the garden off the ground.

Wandsworth Council Leader and co-chair of the Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership Ravi Govindia said:
“This is a great project and another link in the fast growing community gardening network springing up across north Battersea. It’s great to see the area’s horticulture heritage re-establishing itself in this way and I want to say a big thank you to all of the local partners and people who are working together to make it happen and being so generous with their time and resources.

“Nine Elms is already home to the superb Doddington Estate roof garden and Thrive’s community gardening project in Battersea Park. The new Edible Avenue on Thessaly Road and the Rose Community Centre’s Gardening Club complete an impressive quartet.”

VSM and CGMA are working together to comprehensively upgrade the New Covent Garden Market site and are also behind the Edible Avenue project in nearby Thessaly Road, which has involved scores of local schoolchildren and volunteers. This scheme forms part of VSM’s Cultural Strategy and spun out of the 2016 Chelsea Fringe festival. It is set to brighten up the street with a mixture of sculptures, seating and new planters filled with edible plants and herbs for all to look after and enjoy.

To get involved with these projects email EdibleAvenueSW8@gmail.com or GBurnell@wandsworth.gov.uk or call Sue on 07961 342 247 or Glenn on 07703 400 153.

-ENDS-

About Nine Elms on the South Bank:

Nine Elms on the South Bank is emerging as a vibrant new central London quarter after eight years of major investment.

Hardwired into the vision for the area is the importance of developing a new cultural centre for the South Bank, with new parks, performance and leisure spaces woven into the designs.

The district is being shaped by world leading architects, developers and planners to create a truly mixed-use district with real city centre vitality.

The area’s key attractions will include a revived Battersea Power Station, the new US and Dutch embassies, a new centre for London’s foodies at New Covent Garden Market, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, the new Nine Elms Park and a new stretch of Thames Riverside Walk lined with cafes, bars, shops and galleries.

Two new Tube stations are being built, alongside new schools, around 4,000 affordable homes, health centres, high-speed data networks, a second River Bus pier and a new cycling and pedestrian network.

The regeneration programme is privately funded and does not benefit from taxpayer funding.

Find out more at www.nineelmslondon.com


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