Page 47 - ALG Issue 1 2023

Binley Woods awarded Severn Trent Community Funding for communal greenhouse
Our allotments in Binley Woods in Warwickshire are celebrating after being awarded £5,000 in funding from Severn Trent Community Fund’s recent public vote round, enabling
us to complete our ‘communal greenhouse’ project!
We are extremely grateful to everyone that voted for us. Severn Trent’s Community Fund has been set up to fund projects that aim to reduce carbon and help communities care for nature across the Severn Trent region. We are delighted to receive the funding and feel sure that our communal greenhouse will help us, as we strive to be more environmentally aware.
We have allocated a plot within our
site on which to build the greenhouse, already recycling and erecting an old polytunnel frame. We obtained this (with permission!) from a local disused garden centre site that has stood empty for many years. The generous grant that we have been awarded will enable us to finally finish it!
Initially, we intended to just cover our recycled frame with plastic polytunnel sheeting; however, we were worried about the ongoing cost and difficulty of regularly replacing the flimsy polythene cover. We decided to dream about something more substantial and came up with a design that will hopefully have a 20-year life span! We decided that we will use twin wall flexible polycarbonate sheets curved over the recycled frame. Once we decided to go down this route, we added in a water harvesting system (including a solar panel water pumping system and storage tanks to collect
the water that falls on the greenhouse). This water management system was welcomed by Severn Trent who liked the design so much they put our project up for the public vote... and we won!
We want it to be a useful area that we can utilise all-year round for a variety of different things. Obviously one of the main uses will be for our plotholders who haven’t got the luxury of their own greenhouse, to raise their own young plants. We intend to kit it out with
The raised beds will be used to grow more food for our local food bank
staging, raised beds, and a large seating area. The raised beds will be used
to grow more food for our local food bank and the seating area will mean
we can hold meetings/training etc. in a warm, dry place. At the moment our committee meetings are held under a shelter that our lovely plotholders built a few years ago out of recycled fence panels. While it does the job and keeps us mainly dry, it can be very cold and windy at times!
Ultimately, we hope that our communal greenhouse will enable the community in Binley Woods to engage more with their local allotments. We will have no excuse now for not providing lots of our own young plants to sell at our open days! After all, who doesn’t love a plant sale!
This is just the start of our journey. We have a year in which to complete it – so watch this space for the follow-up story!
Julie Doubleday,
Binley Woods Allotments
Allotment and Leisure Gardener 47