We’ve won our first Green Flag Community Award following our support at the Bob Fowler Community Allotment in Swale, Kent.
The Green Flag Award scheme recognises and rewards well managed parks and green spaces. It sets the benchmark standard for the management of recreational outdoor spaces across the United Kingdom and around the world.
The winner’s ceremony was held on Tuesday (16 July) at the London Marriott Hotel Regents Park, where we received the award under the Community Spaces category.
The allotment, which we support through social value, was recognised as a well- managed green space, providing an environmentally sustainable and community-friendly area.
The assessment was based on a judge visiting the allotment and using a list of criteria, with a pass awarded for 60%. We received a score of over 80%.
We were keen to support the application of a Green Flag Community Award due to the hard work and dedication by the volunteer plot holders. Over the past ten years, Bob Fowler’s Community Allotment has flourished from the efforts of our residents and community and is a hidden oasis that offers opportunities to increase the local biodiversity and boost health and wellbeing and sustainable food growing.
Winning the Green Flag Award is a significant milestone and is down to all the hard work and collaboration of staff and volunteers. We’re also grateful to JB Landscape for sponsoring the project through social value.
We’ve always assisted with giving back projects in the past and jumped at the opportunity to help Southern Housing with obtaining their first Green Flag Award. Over the past few months, we’ve provided new ramps and handrails to the composting toilet, installed shingle areas, removal of waste and vegetation clearance. Receiving the Green Flag Award is testament to the hard work and dedication by all the volunteers and the amazing team at Southern Housing. I’m proud we could be a part of such an exciting project.
We recently marked the ten year anniversary of the Bob Fowler Community Allotment. The project launched in 2013, after Bob, a former employee of a legacy Southern Housing organisation, transformed the area from a historical flytipping site, into a peaceful area for the local community to enjoy.
Bob worked alongside Swale Borough Council, Skillnet and Kent County Council to bring the project to fruition. Sadly, Bob passed away in 2012, before he could see the allotment develop into what it is today and the site was named in his honour.
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