The WestRaven Community Garden in Westwood is celebrating the completion of a new greenhouse, thanks to funding from the Postcode Lottery.

The volunteer run garden, which provides valuable outdoor space and educational opportunities for the community, has benefited from over £13,000 of funding from the Postcode Lottery to build the new resource.

Previously, volunteers had been growing seeds at home and bringing them to the garden to grow on. Now the whole growing process will be able to happen on site, and it will enable local school children to learn even more about where their food comes from.

The volunteers at the site hope that the greenhouse will enable them to extend their growing season and improve the productivity of the site. The garden currently provides fresh fruit and vegetables to the WestRaven Community Café and sells to local residents.

The WestRaven Community Garden is part of the WestRaven Big Local project, a resident led initiative funded by the Big Lottery Fund and supported by Cross Keys Homes, to transform the local area and provide community amenities, such as the garden and Café.

The garden is regularly used by local groups including nurseries, schools and environmental charities and the greenhouse will provide a fully accessible space that can be used all year round regardless of weather conditions. 

Linda French, Chair of the WestRaven Committee, said: “This greenhouse is a much-needed addition to the buildings on site, and will compliment our outdoor classroom and kitchen wonderfully. It is fully accessible to the whole community and will enable us to develop a range of courses and even training in horticulture, which will help to generate income for the charity.

“It will be absolutely magical to see the greenhouse full of fascinated young people learning all about their food and biodiversity, and hopefully we can inspire the next Monty Don! We are currently running a much-restricted garden, due to covid, but will be coming out of this much stronger and with more potential for growth, thanks to this amazing new greenhouse. So, thank you so much to the Postcode Lottery for the funding and to Hall and Wyatt, who built it for us.”

You can find out more about the WestRaven Community Café and Garden by following them on Facebook. www.facebook.com/WestravenCafeandGarden