Let's Eat the Park - The Very Idea Of It!

The Idea

In the Autumn of 2013 an idea came to me that was so benign that nobody I have ever met could argue with it. The idea was to use a small urban park in an area of multiple deprivation as a natural resource growing free food for both bodies and minds in the midst of austerity, civic neglect and urban decay. The idea was called 'Let's Eat the Park'

The pilot that went by the acronym LEAP ran from early 2014 and lasted for a little over 2 years. 

At the time the LEAP project began I was the treasurer of a park Friends of group initially set-up under the auspices of the community management arm of the local social landlord. In 2013 the community development agency who had supported the group from its inception in 2008, withdrew all support as funds became scarcer and shed the majority of their staff and for a while pulled out of the local Friends of the Park sector that was now left high and dry.

The Friends group was therefore in the doldrums and more or less treading water when in my role as treasurer I made a last minute bid to the People's Health Trust (PHT) for funding for the the project on the day the nominations closed. This and other funding applications made with inputs from the secretary and chair of the group, eventually gave us pump priming funds over 2 years of a little over £12,000 - during the life of the project this sum which was paid in instalments comprised grants from the PHT and the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) continued to grow as more successful bids piled up. 

In order for these and other subsequent funds to be successfully bid for in a competitive charity market the applications were drafted and initially submitted to the Friends management committee and further to the monthly members meetings to take things forward. LEAP was such a good idea we couldn't go wrong, funds continued to acrue throughout the life of the project, more or less every bid a winner.

The idea wasn't unique, free food growing had been pioneered by Incredible Edible in their project based in Todmorden in Calderdale, West Yorkshire,  which began in 2008. This project grew free food in raised beds in various locations around the town and was inspirational for LEAP.

What was however different about LEAP was that it took a few acres of urban green space and changed its meaning and its value to the community. The plan was simple but interwoven with existing projects that had begun under the initial surge of support backed by the social landlord and a small gathering of the local 'great and the good'.

In the interregnum between the withdrawal of formal support for local friends  of parks groups and fatter fish frying in the form of £1m (over 10 years) of Big Local funding coming to the area the LEAP project was for a while pretty much the only show in town. The first tranche of funding came through at a time when most of the councillors and local worthies had stopped attending Friends meetings and the attitude of those who did turn up was rather demoralised and forlorn.

Representatives of the local authority including parks department staff did still attend the members meetings quite often, as sometimes did the local police, but this was a shaky time for all the parks friends groups after the funds dried up and before the cash strapped patricians locked-on to richer Big Local pickings. Let's Eat the Park was in the history of local volunteer activity and community development very much a product of its time.

The first payment of more than PHT £2,500 in June 2014 changed the gear upwards and LEAP started leaping for real.

We could now afford to buy fruit trees, gardening equipment, hi-viz vests, weekly free refreshments for volunteers, a training day, hire venues and of course ultimately provide free edible produce for the whole community (and for visitors to the area). We could now access materials for raised beds and the project could pay the expenses of a lead gardener and a community development volunteer throughout the 2 year induction period. Funded primarily and contracted with PHT to whom we supplied 6 monthly impact assessments plus feedback to the CCG and other funders. LEAP was now in business and in the local papers too, but it remained strictly a 'cottage industry' organised and delivered by at most half a dozen key individuals.

Nonetheless, LEAP was so much more than providing free food in an area that is in the 10% most multiply deprived areas in the UK.

The Leap vision draws upon ideas of natural wellbeing and the therapeutic value of urban green spaces.

The projects complexity is hidden in its simplicity which is essentially summed up as - if parks grow plants in areas of high food poverty those plants should be as far as possible edible ones. 

LEAP work parties happened almost every week of the project

Having had a logo designed LEAP had a local identity. Every event the Friends group put on was free of charge including three major festive activities we organised and raised funds for locally every year since 2010. The project has been a great success and it is sustainable in that the park continues to be looked after by volunteers - edibles continue to be grown there and the urban orchard we raised funds for and planted continues to bear fruit.

The project I always viewed as a form of alchemy whereby I would write bids to a well understood formula that delivered money, which by miraculous transmogrification was transformed into something people can eat at no cost to them in an area where poor nutrition was commonplace. A cashless local economy was sustained for several years and elements of it continue to thrive today, although there was a lot more to LEAP than growing food, via the Friends it also provided free cultural, arts and recreational events in the park which were also entirely free.

Early on we adopted the principle that whatever reason people don't come to our events, it will never be because they can't afford to.

LEAP Rainbow Kale Free Food in the Park

The next instalment- Lets Eat the Park - Mellow Fruitfulness on the Ring Road - coming soon.