Volunteers help centre to blossom

A COMMUNITY has unveiled a garden created for a city neighbourhood thanks to countless hours of hard work.

Volunteers took over Maes y Coed Community Centre in Cardiff from the council two years ago.

As part of the project, they wanted to create a garden and allotment.

The space they had was a huge pile of earth which was massively overgrown. So they hired a digger to clear the land and start creating the garden.

A garden group was set up, which has had 35 people taking part, aged from 16 to 70. They meet every Saturday for two hours.

The group was one of the first to be given £10,000 through the Tesco Bags of Help scheme where supermarket shoppers pick the community projects in their area they think should get funding from the 5p bag charge,

The local Travis Perkins branch gave discounts to help the volunteers on their way and, when sleepers were stolen, the manufacturers gave a significant discount to get them replaced.

Trustee Darren Smart said: “We had a very positive response with around 35 people getting involved, these ranged from elderly, to middle aged, teenagers and young children.

“We set about clearing the land and building the community garden.

“This included raised beds, a wildlife meadow, log piles, greenhouse and bug hotel.”

In July, the group entered the Royal Horticultural Society’s In your Neighbourhood awards programme and the garden was judged in July, when it received a level 3 award, with hopes to improve to an “outstanding” level five.

Judges said that they had “achieved a great deal in such a short time”.

The official opening of the garden took part on Saturday with Coronation Street actress Lisa George – who plays Beth Tinker in the long-running soap – cutting the ribbon.

She said: “I think it’s great to see the community working together on projects like these, Darren and the team at Maes y Coed have done an amazing job and I’m sure the local community will love spending time in the garden.” Darren said: “It was lovely to have Lisa back in Cardiff and there was a real buzz around the area when news of her visit got around.

“The garden group have worked so hard getting the project finished and we thank Lisa for giving up her time to come along today. We hope that the local community will enjoy spending time in the garden we have created for them.”

He added: “Anyone can use it and it’s a community garden for people here or from the wider community to come, sit and enjoy it.”