RoWCA

Hackney in Bloom 2010 – RoWCA’s canal-side planting project Highly Commended!

RoWCA’s Canal-side clean-up project as part of the London Litter Summit!

21 September 2010
09:00 – 16:45
Living Room, City Hall, London, SE1 2AA

Please click here for more information

Capital Clean-up Campaign Toolkit and RoWCA Planting Project Case Study now available to download.

RoWCA wins an award for our project

We were delighted to be selected for an award from The Conservation
Foundation. The award is for the community category in the London
Green Corners’ Awards. The said we were “a terrific winner, which
ticks all the boxes for the Community Green Corners category.” You can
see it mentioned on their website here

The plants have been thriving, though we have faced a challenge from a
plant lover – someone has been stealing plants from the bed! While we
appreciate the compliment on our choice of flowers, we hope that this
will not become a regular feature…

We have been working closely with the Capital Clean-Up Campaign
Partnership team to finish the community toolkit from the 3 pilot
projects. RoWCA members wrote some of the text, and then provided the
artistic make-over that has turned it from a word doc into a high
class toolkit. An case study of our project will be released by the
Capital Clean-Up Campaign Partnership along with the toolkit. We
really hope that they are of benefit to other groups wanting to do
similar things. Once they are finished, in a couple of weeks time, we
will have them downloadable from our website.

Plans are under way for the construction of the next bed, which we
will do over the summer. We have also just entered the Hackney in
Bloom contest – fingers crossed we will get another award!

It has been a very busy and exciting month! After many months of patient negotiation with project partners, our canal-side planting project has moved from planning into action!

Special wood was sourced to build the beds – which were then prepared by community members under the leadership of one of our professional joiners. This wood – Accoya – is at the cutting edge of sustainable wood production. Made from sustainably grown softwood, it has been treated in a non-toxic process that gives it the strength and durability of hardwood.

We bought many tonnes of premium topsoil, which we mixed with a large amount of compost. Three tonnes of compost were donated, by the London Borough of Hackney; compost that was made from waste from Hackney residents! After a lot of shovelling, our beds were full of lovely fresh soil mix….now we just needed some plants.

We had spent quite a bit of time discussing what kinds of plants we wanted, and then a full planting plan was designed by the lovely Linda (a trained landscape designer who is working with us on a voluntary basis). We took a drive up to Crews Hill, and found a great garden centre that had pretty much everything we wanted. A large group of us were there to plant up the bed, and we are really happy with how it looks.

We would like to thank everyone who has played a part in getting this project off the ground. This includes:

• The project funders London 21 and the Capital Clean-up Partnership
• British Waterways and LB Hackney
• All our suppliers – so far 100% of our suppliers have given us significant discounts
• And of course everyone from within RoWCA and RBCN!!

RoWCA is going to take on planting and maintaining a stretch of the towpath alongside the canal on the Hackney/Islington border. The local community members will clean and plant up the area with flowers and biodiversity planting. RoWCA will ongoingly maintain the area. In addition local artists from the Rosemary Briggs Creative Network will put up artwork on the canal side wall. 2 local primary schools will also be involved in the project.

This project has been chosen as one of three pilot sites for the Clean-Up Green-Up project, which is lead by the Capital Clean-Up partnership board. There will be a tool kit produced that will be a resource for a host of future projects. It will be a high profile, high visibility project with many large agencies and organisations involved. It will be at the forefront of the new initiative to encourage local people to regenerate and look after public land.

Aims

The Project aims to use the beautifying of the area by planting and art as a means rather than an end, to achieve the following:
•    Increase community involvement, eg participation in regular volunteering
•    Make the area a nicer place
•    Inspire other communities to also take on and manage an area of public space

Pilot Project Partners

British Waterways | London Borough of Hackney | London 21 | Rosemary Briggs Creative Network  | Thames 21 | Whitmore Primary School | Accoya | The Co-Operative Food | The Co-Operative Membership | Chas Tapp | Travis Perkins | Springbridge Direct |

Other organisations that are already linked into the project and who have offered support include Chelsea Physic Garden (plants and training) and Keep Britain Tidy (press releases).

For more information, please go to: Capital Clean-up

Want to help out? please get in touch: