Plan to pool gardens to create giant city allotment (From The Oxford Times)

Plan to pool gardens to create giant city allotment

10:30am Wednesday 30th November 2011 in News By Liam Sloan

Sam Bozeat, Mariska Evelein, Katya Sundukova and Matt Morton with their plans

NEIGHBOURS in East Oxford are being urged to tear down their fences and join their back gardens together to create a communal park.

Six people have been working with Green city councillor Matt Morton to draw up a masterplan for the block of 97 houses on the block surrounded by Hurst Street, Bullingdon Road, St Mary’s Road and Leopold Street.

They believe that if neighbours pool their land to create a single growing area, it could provide fruit, vegetables, eggs, and honey for every household.

Under their plans, householders would keep a small stretch of private garden behind their homes, but the majority of their garden would become part of a landscaped open area used for growing produce.

The group estimate that if the 18,000 sq m area behind the houses is tended collectively, it could produce 15kg of orchard fruit and 21kg of soft fruit per household, plus 40 per cent of seasonal vegetables for every home.

An estimated 2.5m litres of rainwater could be gathered from the neighbourhood’s roof tops.

The designs include 2,000 sq m of vegetable patches and raised beds, a 600 sq m orchard, bee hives, chicken coops, ponds and a playground.

The group, made up of students who attended a series of weekend workshops called Farming The City Block with Mr Morton, hope that by encouraging people to share their gardens, communities will grow stronger and more produce can be grown locally.Katya Sundukova, who lives in Hurst Street, said: “The first thing we really want is for people to know their neighbours.

“We want to live in a safe community where we know each other.

“If everyone is responsible for the same communal space, it makes everyone feel safe and we can inspire and encourage each other to take steps towards more sustainable living.”

She said it would create safe space for children to play in behind everyone’s homes.

Fellow student Clayton Lavallin said: “This is a really inspiring vision of what potential there is in a community block.”

The group wants to use the ecological principles of permaculture – growing different crops alongside each other – to maximise the benefit to the natural environment while minimising waste and gardeners’ workload.

They presented their plans at The Old Boot Factory in St Mary’s Road on Sunday, and will now try to win backing from residents.

Mr Morton said he would like to see blocks across the city embrace the idea.

He said: “The people who came to our meeting were interested and generally supportive. That does not mean there is not criticism out there.

“If we want to try to see this come to fruition, we need to find resistance within the community and try to allay any concerns people might have.”

He added: “Hopefully one outcome will be that we can help people within the block who are interested to form a group and take the ideas forwards.

“Ultimately, if we have just two or three gardens next to each other whose owners want to work collectively there is nothing to stop them doing that.”