Your Say On The Future of Walworth Garden
A huge thank you to all who have contributed to our community consultation process and shared feedback and opinions on our plans for improvement so far - we are so grateful for your input and ongoing support.
We continue to update this page as we proceed with each stage of the consultation, and details of the responses from
each round can be found by scrolling down.
Please check back or join our newsletter at the bottom of this page to be kept up to date about the next stages.
Winter 2022 Update
We ran the second stage of consultation with members of our local community on the evening of Tuesday 22 November 2022, and invited all who live or work locally to attend and share their opinions on our plans for greening the area outside our gates.
What you think could be improved about the wider Manor Place and Braganza Street area:
What you think could be improved about the Walworth Garden perimeter:
What you shared and suggested:
Thanks again to all who contributed. The next consultation stage will take place in Summer 2023, and we will update this page with all relevant details.
Preliminary consultation:
Who contributed to the consultation?
The information shared within the consultation forms shows the breakdown of participant ages, gender identities, residency, and relation to the Garden as follows, with the latter allowing participants to selection multiple options:
The range of answers to:
‘What best describes your ethnic origin?’
What did you think of our plans?
An average of 83.4% of contributors ‘strongly’ agreed that our plans across the site were ‘a good idea for our community.’
What else did you share?
Answers sharing what you like about the Garden and wouldn’t want to see changed highlighted our dedication to wildlife and biodiversity, environmental sustainability, and cultivating a community with an inclusive atmosphere.
Answers with suggested areas for improvement and consideration were wide and varied, but three key themes emerged:
What happens next?
The details and insights you shared have confirmed the local need for these plans for improvement within the community, and we can now take this evidence forward to additional funding organisations who may support the work. Your feedback has also shown that you agree this work should take up as little of the Garden’s physical footprint as possible - that the planting and green space should remain the focal point, and that the calming atmosphere should not be impacted. We will endeavour to make sure any improvements are as accessible and welcoming to all as possible, and that the community remains our and involved.
With all of this in mind, we will soon be applying for planning permission, and engaging an architect to work with us on the plans. Once they have been created, we will share the plans on this page, and once again welcome you to contribute feedback and opinions. To be notified when this launches, sign up to our mailing list at the bottom of this page.
Separate to the improvement plans, we are also now working on a plant labelling and database project across the Garden, which will see new labels installed detailing a huge portion of the site’s plants; linked to an accessible online database for continued perusal and reference. We hope that this signposting update will provide additional insight and learning both at the Garden and beyond, and provide some decolonial educational resources on botany and horticulture, sensitive to its stolen histories. Once launched, we will share a link to the site on this page and via our newsletter.
If you would like to be involved in this project, and/or have any questions or comments about the consultation process, please contact francesca@walworthgarden.org.uk.
Recap
As you may have noticed from sold out events, course waiting lists, and growing social and therapeutic horticulture offerings, Walworth Garden has been running at capacity for some time. Despite being on a ¾ acre site, we welcome thousands of students, volunteers, visitors, and staff members every year, and our decade-old structures are no longer best serving our community.
In order to meet the need for improved capacity and access, we have been awarded a sum of money from the Southwark Council CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy), to make improvements to the site, and will soon be applying to other funders for additional support to make this happen.
We have some plans and ideas in mind on how we’d like to do this, which you can discover in the video or text below.
We asked for your input on how to proceed through a short survey and public event, the results of which can be found above.
Our Plans
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Street Area and Fence
We’d like to green and landscape the street area outside our gates, so that it's more beautiful for local residents, and made permeable to cope with rain.
We’d also like to update our perimeter fence with something that doesn’t infringe on wildlife, and replace the old gates with a wider, more welcoming entryway. -
Potting Shed
Our old potting shed is used to teach seed sowing and other types of propagation, but it’s leaking and no longer fit for purpose.
We’d like to replace it with a two storey structure that will increase teaching space, as well as storage space for materials, and office space for our growing team of staff and volunteers. -
Therapy Shelter
Thew new shelter was built this year, sustainably without concrete, to allow us to continue safely running therapy programmes throughout the pandemic. We’d now like to add walls and a permanent roof to make it comfortable for the groups throughout the seasons. We’d also like to add some toilet facilities for all to access.
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Landscaping Yard
As we shift to using more sustainable electric vehicles and tools, we’d like to install charging points in our yard.
Our Garden Services team and students come in and out of this yard several times a day, so we’d like to reconfigure the area so that they have more welfare facilities and a safer way to enter and exit the site.