Local street garden grows a community space

Fly tipping had become a huge problem for one group of residents in London’s Elephant and Castle. One street in particular, Lamlash Street, had become a dumping ground. Many residents had to go through the street every day on their way to the nearest tube station. ‘My frustration boiled over. Every day I had to walk through this street, even though it was awful,’ says Karen Chung, who created Lamlash Gardens to tackle the problem. Lamlash Gardens is an unexpected island of green in the middle of the street. It’s a community garden filling half of the narrow road, squeezed between houses and allotments. Karen from Lamlash Gardens Karen describes the process of creating the garden as a perfect storm. It turned out that the local council had just started a scheme called Cleaner, Greener, Safer that the project fit perfectly. An architect from What If Projects, a community project Karen admired, had just moved to the area and volunteered to get involved with planning and landscaping. Karen stepped forward with the idea and the local community backed her drive, donating their time, skills and money. ‘Once I suggested we do it, people started saying I’ve been thinking that for years,’ she says, ‘You just need that person who puts themselves forward.’ Karen didn’t have any experience in starting a garden, but she had the determination to make her area a better place to live. ‘I’m a nosey neighbour,’ she explains, ‘I like to know what’s going on in my area. That’s my biggest qualification for starting this - I live in the area and got the sense that this space was needed.’

The importance of community spaces

‘Before the garden we didn’t really have any community spaces,’ says Karen, ‘Despite having a great community we didn’t really have anywhere to meet - somewhere people could bump into their neighbours.’ Spend an hour in the garden and it’s clear that provides space for the community. In amongst blooming flowers, circled by bees, you’ll find members of the community meeting to chat. Lots of residents make an effort to cut through the street, often making detours to visit. Everyone stops to say hello as they pass through. ‘The people here are great,’ she says, ‘It’s one of the friendliest, most relaxed places I’ve ever lived. And we’ve created a space where people can come together.’ Spaces are important for a community. Lamlash Gardens gives people the space to hold events, take a break, meet each other and a space for children to play. ‘I don’t think you can have a strong community without a space for people to be,’ says Karen, ‘You’ve got to have a space where people can talk and hang out.’ Importantly it’s provided space for everyone in the community. Parents often visit with children during school holidays and weekends, workers stop by for lunch and it provides a much needed space for teenagers to be. ‘Before there was nowhere for teenagers to hang out,’ she explains, ‘Now they come here in the evening. Most of them are lovely, really respectful of the space. If there’s a bunch of you parents don’t really want you cluttering up the house, now they have somewhere to go.’

Getting the community involved

Lead by Karen, creating Lamlash Gardens was a real community effort. She was passionate at getting them involved at every stage. She consulted with them heavily to find out what they wanted - so much so that the plans to do the whole road in one go were curtailed. Instead she decided to do half the road and do it right, with facilities people wanted. People were also involved in creating the garden, getting together on a day Karen describes as like a ‘summer party’. Everyone got stuck in to landscape the space, create flowerbeds and plant flowers and trees. Now they’re involved in regular gardening clubs, helping maintain the space.

Becoming sustainable

Having created the gardens, Karen now wants to ensure that they last. She decided early on that she wanted to run the gardens as a social enterprise. ‘Our plan now is to extend to the end of the street and then open a shop,’ she explains, ‘We can sell local produce, encourage local business people to sell their stuff. The shop will help us be sustainable.’ Part of her motivation to start the shop was driven by her experiences with grant funding. ‘I’ve spent so much of the last two and a half years applying for funding,’ she says, ‘It’s a lot better use of my time to start a little business that can sustain itself and the gardens. We can generate an income, know what’s coming in and bet on that.’

Impact

Less than a year from its official opening and the garden has had a big impact. Helping to provide a space for the community to come together, as well as cutting down on fly tipping. ‘We’ve not completely stopped fly tipping on the street,’ says Karen, ‘We usually have a couple of bits at the weekend - but it’s helped, there’s so much less than there was before. People can see we’ve created something here and are proud of it.’ Creating the garden has had an impact on Karen too. A former fashion and lifestyle journalist, she’d never really had much experience of gardening - but she knew how to sell an idea, how to bring people together. Using the skills and resilience of her local community has helped Lamlash Gardens be successful. ‘When we first started I went to the garden centre with the huge responsibility of buying plants, says Karen, ‘Pretty much everything came up. None of us are real gardeners but we get by, and for the big challenges we’ve had help from people on the allotments - using their local expertise.’