Gardening Club
The Ethelburga Community Gardening Club is open to all residents on Ethelburga, and Friends of the Club. Members can sign up to one or both of the Club’s current projects.
It currently is responsible for the development of the Grow Your Own Food Project (see HERE), and is negotiating with the Council to assume responsibility for the gardening and green space management on the entire Estate, known as the Ethelburga Community Gardening Initiative.
GYO Food Project participants are expected to give a minimum of time to the other areas for which the Club may assume responsibility; Gardening Initiative members may optionally participate in the GYO Food Initiative.
The Ethelburga Community Gardening Initiative
We would all like Ethelburga to be and remain an attractive place to live in.
There is only that much that the Council can do, particularly in a period of cut-backs and austerity.
It is therefore up to us to participate in the upkeep of Ethelburga. We are finalising arrangements with the Council over a number of services in which we want to have direct participation. Taking care of our green spaces is one of the areas we are close to agreement over.
We have a number of experts who are providing us with advice on how to create a better planting scheme for the entire estate. We will publish here news of what their suggestions and proposals are.
Pending an eventual formal arrangement with the Council we have an interim understanding to carry out some agreed pruning of existing plants and some upkeep of certain flowerbeds. If you feel like a bit of gardening, please watch out for announcements on this site. We anticipate having fixed weekly gardening periods once a formal agreement with the Council has been entered into. Expect more news soon.
And please note, until otherwise stated here, in our newsletter and advised by the Council, responsibility for gardening and garden maintenance remains firmly with the Council. All residents will be consulted before the Council will enter into any formal arrangements with us.
If you have contacts to any organisations in the area, or if you wish to do so yourself, we are very interested in hearing from those who wish to sponsor, and/or take responsibility, for any particular part of the Estate, or any single flower bed. We will need to agree the proposed planting plan. We will explore with Council the concept of any sponsor being permitted to indicate their sponsorship with a discreet sign (of our design) in the flower-bed or at the tree of their sponsorship.
The map below shows the green areas on the Estate for which the Ethelburga Community Gardening Club is negotiating with the Council to take over responsibility.
Green Spaces at Ethelburga
Searles Close Raised Green Space
One area of our community green space (opposite Searles Close 45 to 49) is already being sponsored by Battersea Flats.
This is what it looks like on a dark March 16th afternoon; we will bring further reports as spring and summer approach.
Registered Environmental Body
In order to have access to the not-inconsiderable funds available for environmental projects, the Gardening Club needs to be a registered Environmental Body. Our application to become one has been successful, as the certificate below evidences.
Any projects for which we seek funding from environmental funds and bodies requires approval from ENTRUST, the national regulatory umbrella organisation for Environmental Bodies. Our GYO Food Initiative is currently before ENTRUST (Dec-2012).
