Uniting a community – through a garden

There’s a multi-award-winning garden on a Chesterfield estate, as Catherine Roth reports.

RESIDENTS of a housing estate in Chesterfield have created their very own award-winning community garden. The Holme Hall estate, which is home to between three and four thousand residents, was lacking a place where they could meet, so a local group – aptly named the Holme Hall Unite Community Group – decided to create its own community garden. Tony Hedley, chair of the group, says: “Over 300 flats on the estate have no outside space, which was one of the main motivators for creating the garden. People can sit on one of the benches and enjoy a quiet moment, reading a newspaper or enjoying a picnic. There are very few seats on the estate, so the garden’s a convenient place to take a break when people are on their way back home with their shopping. It’s also next door to a care home, so the residents there also make use of it.”