Following a successful application to Power to Change (the charitable trust set up to support community business across England) a grant of £215,000 has been awarded for development of the integrated Growing Opportunities and Employment and Skills projects.

The funding will support development of the community business and increase capacity across its elements. New posts will be recruited and this will support ongoing development work across the project.

Phased development works will also see the expansion of Ideal for All’s community garden sites – Salop Drive Market Garden (Oldbury), Malthouse Garden (Smethwick) and the development of Barlow Road (Wednesbury)

Adjacent to Junction 9 of the M6 motorway, this generous funding contribution will support the creation of a new community garden at Barlow Road and develop our environmentally beneficial food production and meaningful health, wellbeing and employability activities.

Two of the sites already offer fully accessible therapeutic gardening, food growing and healthy eating programmes for individuals, community groups and schools, equipped with onsite classrooms and fresh produce for sale. The newest site, Barlow Road, is derelict and will undergo major transformation as a result of the funding.

Emelye Westwood, Growing Opportunities Project Lead at Ideal for All said:

“The power to change investment will enable us to maximise the potential of our existing Employment & Skills and Growing Opportunities integrated project. It will support the creation of an accessible garden and community business, funding initial infrastructure works at Barlow Road and building capacity within the teams.

"Each site offers something unique and collectively contribute to our overall vision of linking positive lifestyles to opportunities for individuals to gain new skills for work, be active in their community, access locally grown produce and be kind to the environment.”

Get involved

Would you like to get involved as a volunteer with this project and help shape the design of the Barlow Road Community Garden? If so, please send us an email with the message BARLOW and we’ll be in touch.

Notes

About Power to Change

Started in 2015, Power to Change is an independent charitable trust endowed with £150 million from the Big Lottery Fund to grow community business in England. Over the next nine years, funding is being provided to support and help build many more sustainable community businesses that have positive economic, social and environmental impact in local places across England.

About the Big Lottery Fund The Big Lottery Fund supports the aspirations of people who want to make life better for their communities across the UK. We are responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by the National Lottery and invest over £650 million a year in projects big and small in health, education, environment and charitable purposes.

Since June 2004 we have awarded over £8 billion to projects that change the lives of millions of people. Every year we fund 13,000 small local projects tackling big social problems like poor mental health and homelessness.