Community Gardens in Okehampton. Involving the local community in achievable tasks to tackle climate change.
How we are fixing it...
By gathering together local people with skills and resources to take responsibility for our surroundings now and long into the future.
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Fix Progress
01/02/2009
Make Okehampton what you always wanted it to be – You are invited to submit design, ideas and thoughts of what you would like to see materialise as a permanent feature in the Gateway Garden, Okehampton.
There are some exciting plans for the land at the corner of Crediton Road, Northfield Road and East Street. The most important of which is to fully involve the community of Okehampton in the design of whatever may be sited on this site. We are currently working with students form Okehampton
College and community groups throughout the town to launch a community participation design process. We hope that the process of clearing the site to the final installation of a Community initiated Art Work will take less than three months.
Through involving the local community we hope that whatever the final outcome of the work will be, it will be owned, respected and loved by the passers by and utilisers of this space - the people of Okehampton.
Through the planning of this project, we decided that the first step
should be to physically clear the land of the scrub that was there.
This is to spark people’s imaginations and ideas of what could be
located in the given space. It may look a little un-slightly at the moment, have faith that Growing Our Future will be working there weekly with 6th form students from Okehampton College to tidy it up and map the area for the community planning process.
We have been working closely with Cllr Christine Marsh and the Roads
and Highways Department of Devon County Council, Okehampton College are also in full support of our actions.
Growing Our Future is a Community Garden project located at Okehampton College, Devon. Working with artists, scientists, gardeners, global and local communities, the old, the young, individual and collective, Growing Our Future demonstrates the sharing of values and skills crossing generation, class and gender.
The roots of Growing Our Future lie in local people gaining hands-on experiences with inspiring people. The garden will create a place for discussion, forward thinking and positive action in relation to the current environmental, social and economic situations that we are faced with in today’s world.
The heart of the project is focused on developing healthy and sustainable communities long into the future. By actively being part of the project, students and community members will gain first hand experience of working with the land, people, the climate, plants, animals and food. These experiences motivate and engage people in a process of self-development and an awareness of what is possible.
The Gateway Garden is a three month long project to create a community- area in a central location of Okehampton. All design processes will involve members of the community encouraging responsibility and ownership. The area will provide a place for rest and reflection – both in terms of the immediate environment and that of the global context.
We are hoping that this space will be completed by the end of the Easter holidays (the 19th of April) ready for communal use during the summer months, and that this will be a space created for the community alongside the community, therefore involving community participatory methods within the design and creation of the space.
Please feel free to add your ideas to the design of what will be located in the Gateway Garden. You are invited to use the plan of the site or to add additional information, drawings or thoughts – please send these by 6th February to: The Gateway Garden, Growing Our Future, Okehampton College, Mill Road, Okehampton, EX20 1PW or contact us for more information through our e-mail: growingourfuture@gmail.com
