Ask for forgiveness rather than permission,” is Bríd Ruddy’s advice for starting a project like Belfast’s Wildflower Alley. In 2015, Ruddy (main picture, above) along with neighbours and student volunteers from nearby Queen’s University, turned the narrow alley behind her street into a garden. Once marred by vandalism and fly-tipping, the space is now a colourful, plant-filled haven.
Community groups across the UK are taking patches of unloved land and filling them with fruit, vegetables and flowers. As roughly one in five people in the UK live in areas that lack access to green space, any plot, no matter how small, can have an impact. A recent Lancaster University study found that …
