Star date: 3rd April 2019

SALFORD COUNCILLORS 'CALL IN' COUNCIL DECISION TO SELL COMMUNITY FOREST GARDEN TO URBAN SPLASH

A £30,000 community forest garden in Blackfriars, that was part of the £400,000 hopelessly failed Biospheric Project, has been secretly sold by Salford City Council to Urban Splash.

Furious local councillors have 'called-in' the decision, which will now be scrutinised by a Council committee... "It's very disingenuous that this plot of land had the community making it into an orchard...and then it's taken away from the people" a source tells the Salford Star "The last thing we need is another apartment block..."

Full details here...

Way back in 2012, Salford City Council handed £300,000 over to the Biospheric Foundation, backed by another £100,000 from Manchester International Festival, for what a Council press release described as 'Growing peas in former print works'.

"It's about transforming a disused space into a sort of prototype urban farm project, a really unique project which has got a range of outputs from food products, to research, to enterprise, to community training and skills" a Festival spokesperson told the Salford Star at the time "It's about turning that space which is unused at the moment into something productive which explores new ways of looking at food production within the local community...It's a long term project."*

The Biospheric building itself, owned by Urban Splash and on prime riverside land in Blackfriars, was supposed to be a hive of 'aquaponic urban farming' but only three years later the project had gone bust with debts totalling over £100,000, as the Star ran an expose of dead fish, starving chickens and exploited volunteers.**

At the time, community activist and youth worker Graham Cooper, who was critical of the project from day one, was furious... "People from the community complained and no-one from the Council listened" he told the Star "I got fobbed off because it was a one of the Mayor's pet projects. At the time of making cuts to our youth provision and other public services they gave the Biospheric all this money. We've had no funding from Salford Council for over five years. We grow citizens and got nowt, while our Mayor invested in growing mushrooms. That just about sums up our Mayor."

The Salford City Mayor back then was Ian Stewart, and sat on the advisory board for the Biospheric Project was current Salford City Mayor, Paul Dennett, and Lead Member for Planning Councillor Derek Antrobus.

As the project collapsed, by 2016 the wholefood shop which was supposed to be selling the Biospheric's produce had shut down and the 'Blackfriars Forest Garden' outside the building on East Philip Street, which cost over £30,000 to create, had turned into a mass of tangled weeds and abandoned equipment. A far cry from the boast on the Biospheric's website that the Garden was "designed to grow more than fifty species of trees and more than 100 plant species, including fruits, berries, perennial vegetables, medicinal plants, herbs and spices, edible flowers and other supportive species...

"Its location in a densely populated area of the city allows us to study how inner-city land may be modified and adapted for food production" it added "The forest garden has been created using agricultural processes such as alley-cropping, bio-trenching and guiding, resulting in a low-maintenance, high yield growth system..."***

Last week, Salford Deputy Mayor, Paula Boshell, signed a decision made in secret, with absolutely no notice to the community and no details in the public domain (apart from the location) to flog the land off to Urban Splash for an undisclosed amount.

As word spread, local residents were furious and now the decision has been 'called in' by local councillors and a councillor living in the area, which means that the flog off will be reviewed by a panel of scrutiny councillors.  

"There was no communication about this and no-one was informed; it's indicative that the Council officers don't tell you what they are doing" said a source close to the Council "It is a congested area and the last thing we need is another apartment block.

"It's very disingenuous that this plot of land had the community working on it, making it into an orchard, and then for it to be taken away with the flick of a pen doesn't seem right" they added "It's taking it away from the people. Residents were already talking about tidying it up and bringing it back to use, as not much needs doing. We have to defend green space where it's needed."

A local resident added: "We're sick of being overbuilt, we haven't got many things left like this beautiful garden and we're going to fight to keep it. Urban Splash has to be stopped; they can't ride roughshod over everyone..."

For a full background see previous Salford Star articles...

*Salford Council £300,000 Pea Growing Project – click here

**£400,000 Salford Biospheric Project Goes Bust – click here

***The £30,000 Weed Garden By The Irwell – click here