Greening our Alleys

The Whalley Range ‘Celebrate your Alleygates Project was one of 3 winning submissions from the Big Family Idea – a competition to improve family life in the UK, funded by the Big Lottery Fund – as part of National Family Week.

Cath Wade and Chris Ricard are involved in the project which has been awarded £35,000 and aims to green up to 10 gated alleyways in various locations across Whalley Range.

The project has attracted the attention of residents at Celebrate, World Environment Day (the official launch with Big Lottery press coverage) and at the Manley Park Fun Day.

 ‘Celebrate your Alleygates’ held a consultation event at JNR8 on Saturday July 5^th, to bring together everyone who had shown an interest in improving their own Alleys. With food and activities for children around 60 residents attended, made friends and shared ideas for their own alleys with each other. A mini model of a back alleyway, designed by Cromwell Avenue resident and architect Hannah Wooler, gave people the opportunity to picture how they could use the space, with ideas ranging from plants, garden furniture, play equipment and planters. Harriet from Westminster Avenue brought along a presentation of ideas for her own alley.

The Celebrate your Alleygates project will also produce a booklet for other residents to find out about how to green their own alleys, start a greening project with neighbours, find resources and funding - and to get ideas and share experiences.

Alleyway Project update

September 2010:

‘

Celebrate your Alleygates’ is making progress.

The project is funded through a Big Lottery Fund

competition and the amount awarded was £35,000.

The project will be very much community led, giving

an opportunity to reclaim the alleys as a green and

safe place - to chat to neighbours, bringing people

together to share skills and ideas. The aim of the

project is ultimately to improve up to 10 gated alleys –

5 from start to finish and 5 already in the process of

being greened; each alley will reflect the needs of the

residents and we have been consulting with people at

our community events to share ideas. We will source

materials locally where possible and have money in

the budget to pay local people to run workshops and

training as required.

Event at JNR8 in July:

this was a consultation with

people who had signed up to have their alleys

greened. There was a great turnout (well - we did

provide free food!) and a diverse mix of people

attended; both people we’d spoken to about their

own ideas for their alleys at Celebrate/Environment

Day/Fun Day – and a lot of residents we’d never met

before who’d found out about the event from other

neighbours on their block.

We also had a visit recently from two of the Board

members from Big Lottery Fund who have shown an

interest in the alley project, Ijaz Ashraf MBE (who is an

ex WR resident) and Roland Dovan MBE.

We took the visitors on a tour of alleys and discussed

progress of the project and future plans.

We will produce a booklet/toolkit/alley greening

guide at the end of the project with an event to

promote it. The booklet will be available in hard copy

and online PDF format – and will include information

about funding sources to make the project sustainable

when the money has run out.

A list of alley plans and updates as well as event

details will be distributed through the email bulletins

and website and updates can also be obtained by

telephoning JNR8 on 881 3744 (Cath/Chris)