Long awaited update

As you may know, significant changes took place last year at our garden site. The original garden was completely cleared to make way for redevelopment, and we appreciate that this may have been upsetting for many of you who supported the project over the years.

We’re excited to share that work is now well underway at the site of the former garden, which is set to become a youth centre. This development includes a dedicated space for the young people of Runcorn.

This centre aims to provide a safe space for youth to learn and cultivate their passions. Planned facilities include a winter garden, a lobby, and an indoor venue for cultural events, as well as an outdoor garden space for growing fresh produce. For the latest updates about the Youthy, please visit Creative and Digital Skills Centre.

In June 2024, we successfully placed a new Book Tree on the grounds of All Saints Church, continuing our tradition of sharing books within the community. Unfortunately, the old one was too riddled with woodworm, and while we did try to save it, it ultimately had to be replaced.

We have had some brilliant times with the garden project and formed great friendships along the way. The volunteers are the heart and soul of the project, and we lost a special part of the garden this year. It’s nice to see familiar faces among these pictures. As the town redevelops around us, we are looking forward to creating some green spaces when we get the chance!

We also wanted to share some images from one of our last volunteer sessions in the garden, where we started moving some plants back to the newly named Old Town Bloom Yarden, conducted a litter pick, and, of course, enjoyed the most important thing—eating cake and chatting with friends!

The Mural was taken down, and we’re excited that it will be upcycled into new items by artists and members of the public as part of the current free workshop programme at Hazlehurst Studios.

The Old Town Bloom Yarden is slowly taking shape and remains a work in progress, filled with potential and new opportunities for community engagement.

In our previous posts about Old Town Bloom on Tour, which began in late 2022 when we knew the garden was going to be redeveloped, we took the garden project on the road. This initiative allowed us to keep the spirit of the garden alive and engage with the community in new ways. You can read more about our journey in the earlier posts - post here

This was made possible thanks to funding from the Liverpool City Region Environment Fund. As part of the tour, we developed new outdoor furniture, including upcycled cushions for our garden trolley, symbolising the 'on tour' aspect of our project. We also created accompanying upcycled planters that showcased our commitment to sustainability.

These creations were highlighted at Halton Makefest in Widnes Library in March 2023 and again at the Cheshire Show and Liverpool Makefest in June 2023, where we handed out seeds to inspire local gardening efforts. This experience not only kept the idea of the garden alive but also allowed us to explore how we could incorporate gardening and growing into our projects while we don’t have a physical garden at the moment.

Thank you for your continued support as we embrace this new chapter. We look forward to sharing more updates with you soon!