Nottingham City Homes and its green fingered tenants are celebrating after winning Community Green Flag Awards.
The Green Flag Community Award is the benchmark for parks and green spaces, which are managed by volunteers. Wherever you see a Green Flag, you know you’re visiting an exceptional place with the highest standards.
Nottingham City Homes, volunteers and residents have this year won Five Community Green Flag awards, celebrating these five amazing gardens –
- Crossfield Court, Bestwood
- Hazelhurst Gardens, Bulwell
- Transition Sherwood (Sherwood Community Food Garden), Sherwood
- Victoria Centre Roof Garden, city centre
- Frinton Road Pocket Park, Broxtowe, supported by Nottingham City Homes
This is the second time that the Victoria Centre Roof Garden, Hazelhurst Gardens and Frinton Road Pocket Park have been awarded the status. However, this is the first time that Crossfield Court and Transition Sherwood have won a Green Flag Community Award.
After 18 months that have seen parks and green spaces play a vital role for people through lockdowns as a place to relax, exercise and meet friends and family safely, the news that these four sites have achieved the Green Flag Community Award is testament to the hard work and dedication of the team of volunteers that make those green spaces a great space that everyone can enjoy.
In celebration of this year’s announcement, Green Flag Award is asking buildings and monuments around the UK to #GoGreenForParks today to show appreciation for the spaces that mean so much to people.
In Nottingham, the Council House in Old Market Square will be will be ‘going green’ tonight to celebrate the amazing parks and green spaces in the city.
Nottingham City Homes Green Flag Community Winners
- Hazlehurst Gardens (Bulwell) is an independent living facility with 35 residents. NCH cut the grass, but the residents have transformed the grounds into a lovely community space, with space for growing their own food. They not only maintain the beautiful gardens and social areas but they look after the gardens of other residents who may not be able to.
- Victoria Centre Roof Garden (City Centre) was built on top of Victoria Centre flats and opened in 2019. It features a range of different seating areas and timber raised beds, which residents have been planting themselves, as well as trees and other plants. A long established residents group help to maintain the garden and grow vegetables and fruit. The vision is to create a well maintained green space for the residents to relax in, grow in and to provide an outdoor social area.
David Pitt, who helps look after the Roof Garden, says: “Delighted to have won a Green Flag Community Award for the second year running, and we look forward to working with Nottingham City Homes to make our lovely garden even better during the coming year”.
- Crossfield Court, Bestwood is an independent living facility and is home to 24 residents. Basic grounds maintenance is done by NCH, but in 2019 residents came together to transform the grounds and create areas for growing fruit and vegetables, creating social areas for resident to enjoy and there is also an Avery at the garden. The residents have plans to help increase the wildlife in their neighbourhood with future improvements too.
Margaret and Trevor both volunteer to look after the garden at Crossfield Court and said: “I am pleased to hear we have been awarded, a lot of hard work has gone in to the garden by myself, Margaret and Mark and with the help of others it is a lovely space to gather. We will continue with our efforts to make the garden an area where we can all gather. We have had some lovely evenings in the garden. The fruit and veg has been welcomed by other residents and nothing has gone to waste. We listened to the advice of the Green Flag and have changed to peat free compost and introduced a little bug hotel too”
- Transition Sherwood (Sherwood Community Food Garden) in Sherwood is all about encouraging communities to live with less oil, reducing their energy use and teach people to grow their own food.
They have two gardens as part of this project, the Community Food Garden which has shared growing areas and mini plots to look like a garden rather than allotments and the Community Garden, Edingley Square. This once unused patch of land tucked behind the prison was transformed by the tenants and residents group, creating a garden with a mix of small allotment plots and shared areas with fruit, flowers, and nature areas. - Frinton Road Pocket Park in Broxtowe, which is run by Broxtowe Community Club has also won a Green Flag Community Award. Established in the summer of 2017, the Frinton Road Pocket Park is a community run garden supported by Nottingham City Homes and is open to local residents who wish to contribute and share it as a haven for fruit and vegetable growing and bee-friendly flowers.
Steve Feast, Director of Housing at Nottingham City Homes, said: We are absolutely delighted that four of our community gardens have been recognised, but most importantly that the volunteers who look after and run these gardens have been recognised for their incredible work.
“These Community Awards recognise and highlight the value of our community gardens, they are such an important part of people’s lives and well-being, especially for NCH residents. We know how much quality community green spaces matter to residents and visitors, and these awards celebrates the dedication of volunteers and community groups in making our green spaces even nicer places to be.”
Commenting on the wins, Green Flag Award Scheme Manager Paul Todd said: “I would like to congratulate everyone involved in making these community gardens at Nottingham City Homes worthy of a Green Flag Community Award.”
“To meet the requirements demanded by the scheme is testament to the hard work of the staff and volunteers who do so much to ensure that these sites have high standards of horticulture, safety and environmental management and is a place that supports people to live healthy lives.”
The Green Flag Award scheme, managed by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, recognises and rewards well-managed parks and green spaces, setting the benchmark standard for the management of green spaces across the United Kingdom and around the world.
