Welcome cash injection for Chiswick House community group

The first crop of Lottery funding from the Breathing Places grants scheme was being rolled out this week by the Big Lottery Fund. £1 million in Lottery funding was made available for local community groups to create their own wildlife-friendly havens. Now green fingered Londoners, inspired by the BBC–led Breathing Places campaign have been gearing up to plough their slice of the £1 million in Lottery funding into creating their own wildlife-friendly green havens.

Chiswick House Kitchen Garden Association is one of 63 local community groups nationally to have been awarded funding to transform and develop Breathing Places: these are green spaces or areas that are being created into an oasis for people and wildlife. The Kitchen Garden is an organic garden located in a previously inaccessible waste ground. The association promotes understanding of organic gardening, wildlife and encourages local school children and those from deprived backgrounds to become involved in environmental activities.

The money, £4,500, will be used to remove a derelict shade tunnel, leaving space to create two or three more beds to be transformed into the productive and beautiful spaces that have become the trademark of the Kitchen Garden group. Once contractors have removed the concrete and metal, local schoolchildren and other volunteers will be able to do the rest.

Chair of the Kitchen Garden Association, Jo Rabin, said “We're very pleased to have received the award. Removal of this ugly and inappropriate relic will make a huge difference to the appearance of the Garden. All the work, so far, has been done by local schoolchildren and our volunteers. But demolition and disposal of this structure needs machinery, so we couldn't do it on our own. We're looking forward to it being gone and to restoring where it stood to something altogether more beautiful.”

Autumnwatch host Bill Oddie said “From little acorns mighty oaks will grow…and this new money is fantastic news. It’s great for people right across the UK who want their very own Breathing Places in their very own local patch, and now know they’ll have access to money to keep them going. It takes years for oaks to develop – bit like me really! – and in my experience the best projects are the ones that have the time and money to just get better and better.”

October 13, 2006