Story of how green growth can add to shoots of regeneration

LOUGHBOROUGH’S Gardeners’ Fair is an entirely new type of event that brings nature’s beauty right into the centre of Loughborough town.

The event turns the centre of Loughborough into a huge outdoor Plant Nursery combined with an Artisan Food and Craft Fair… The beauty of Nature, good Food and Art - to feed the body mind and soul - all the things that make life good.

And it all came about because of a clerical error!

The genesis was when local designer Ken Griffiths was returning from a day out visiting the beautiful gardens at Calke Abbey with his partner’s parents, her father, a retired gardener, visiting from Schleswig-Holstein.

Stopping off to pick up some provisions in Loughborough’s Devonshire Square in the town centre, they were faced with the concrete eyesore of a former 1960’s car park, faced with asbestos blighting the entire length of a central town square. Quite a contrast to the stately gardens they had just visited.

It looked truly terrible - and cast a dark shadow; making the town centre look neglected and unloved.

Ken felt embarrassed. He loved his new home town and its people and thought it really deserved, and should have, better.

And with the beautiful Calke Abbey gardens still fresh in his mind Ken thought a “green” solution would be a poetic counterpoint to the concrete brutalism of the of the present building.

Before Ken moved to Loughborough he had studios in Bond Street, Mayfair just around the corner from the Athenaeum Hotel one of the first buildings in the UK to have a spectacular “living wall”.

Good enough for Mayfair - good enough for Loughborough, Ken thought. It wouldn’t be cheap but it would be a lot cheaper than complete redevelopment.

A living wall could be a quick fix and in just a few months it could transform Devonshire Square from being Loughborough worst location into one of its best - an ugly place into a beautiful place.

Ken put his designer hat on - took some pictures and in just a few days Photoshopped them to show how a living wall would look and transform the square and emailed the images to every councillor he could find the contact details for.

He was in luck..

Timing was perfect, the council was just putting the finishing touches to applications for the first round of government “Levelling Up funding”.

They loved the idea and told Ken they could include the Living Wall idea in the applications if they had a fully costed proposal in 10 days (other applicants had a year and were still refining).

They knew it was a long-shot, but it was a serious suggestion and to help they put Ken in touch with Lisa Brown of Love Loughborough (a not-forprofit organisation paid for by the traders of Loughborough to help promote the town).

Lisa agreed to help - the two of them worked flat out and produced all the documents needed, fully costed, in the 10 days, and submitted them just in time.

And, a few months later, they won the funding!

Part of the application was to show how the project could benefit the town’s economy. Ken suggested the UK’s first “Gardeners’ Fair” to bring people in to an otherwise deserted town on summer Sundays.

The living wall would make a beautiful backdrop for the event and the event would be an apt celebration to launch the wall.

It would be run by the council’s Markets and Fairs department and he would help with design and promotion.

However, as the proposal application was so rushed this aspect was… “not put as clearly as it might have been”.

A few months later the council called in Ken and Lisa and asked when they were going to “put on the first fair”.

Ken clarified “it was a suggestion for the council - it has “no allocated budget” - it’s been awarded no funding. “And we have no time or professional staff to put it on!”

The authority brought in its markets team to see what could be done - but like all local authorities at the moment budgets and staff are stretched to breaking point.

Everyone at the council and markets loved the idea but after much calculating and soul searching they didn’t have the staff or the budget to take it on - and to take a risk on an untested idea just could not be justified to already hard pushed council tax-payers.

Members of staff would, however, be happy to advise in their own time and promote the event through council media if it was decided the event would go ahead.

With only a few weeks to go before the seasonal horticultural widow for such an event would have passed for the year, Lisa and Ken decided to “just go ahead and do it!”

In four weeks, from a standing start, with no budget and, in Ken’s case, no experience of staging events, the pair hit the road, personally visiting nurseries, garden centres, craft fairs and farmers’ markets all over the Midlands and managed to twist the arms of, per

suade and recruit enough nurseries and plant sellers and artisan makers to make Gardeners’ Fair a serious proposition and then a reality.

All involved worked for free because they believed in the project - even the hire of the town squares was paid for by the traders themselves through the small stall fees. So rather than costing the council it put funds into their coffers.

Ken used his design and marketing skills to publicise the event, creating a website and posting on social media, designing posters and leaflets, distributed by his family to Charnwood shops and businesses, who were all keen to help.

Lisa’s organisational skills - and dogged, around-the-clock work made the whole thing come together. All the licences needed, all the permits, event insurance, the informing of all the shopkeepers and town centre businesses; everything was in place and correct and in place just in time.

The pair said: “But right up until the last moment at, 10am on the morning of the first pilot, with all the plant sellers set up, over two squares, at great personal expense and risk, and all the artisan food and craft people in place in the third square, some who had travelled far with specially produced stock… None of us knew if it was going to work - if anyone would come - even if it really was a good idea at all!

“Then, just before 10am, a small trickle of people started to arrive and then more and then more, hundreds and then thousands and then ten thousand and more!

“The event had a great atmosphere, a festival feel. And visitors loved the fact that the growers and makers were, ‘the experts,’ on what they were selling and they were, ‘right there’ to give advice and information, no fruitless searching for staff.

“Plant sellers sold out by noon, artisan makers, some veterans of some of the big national shows like Chelsea, reported having their best day ever.

“By the end of the day at four, our traders were exhausted but very happy. Our plant sellers left with their vans empty and their order books full.

“We had 20,000 visitors to our first two pilots!”

It was a phenomenal success, they said.

“And the towns shops, cafés, restaurants and pubs all did well too, so a great day for the whole town. A real boost to the local economy.

“A town centre, often deserted on a Sunday, was packed with happy people, spending money, many visiting Charnwood for the first time, and leaving with a great first impression.

“Gardeners’ Fair is literally ‘Green Growth’ and if nurtured will add to the shoots of regeneration for Charnwood.

You can watch the movie of the pilot on the website: www.gardenersfair.co.uk

The Gardeners’ Fair pilots were such a success the hope is to run them on the first Sunday of every month from April to September.

“Our first one of the season on Sunday, April 7 was three times bigger than our first,” added Ken.

Our traders were exhausted but very happy. Our plant sellers left with their vans empty and their order books full.

Ken Griffiths