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OUR PLACE IN THE SUN
“It’s our place in the sun,” says Rosa. “And the bees love the lavender.”
Rosa is just one of many Kings Cross-Brunswick residents who volunteered to help create the Marchmont Street Community Garden, central London’s newest public ornamental garden. The garden creates a new, dawn-to-dusk pedestrian link between Marchmont, Kenton and Handel streets.
Local people now manage and own the site. The Marchmont Community Garden Partnership maintains the site and the Kings Cross-Brunswick Neighbourhood Association holds a lease on the site.
The garden beautifies a former development ‘gap’ site, a vacant and inaccessible small piece of land known as SLAP, or Spare Land After Planning.
The Marchmont Association, run by local people and businesses, secured a £100,000 Big Lottery Fund grant. Another £40,000 came from Camden Council's 'Section 106' pot – contributions developers pay to cover the cost of their developments on local infrastructure.
The Association appointed architects and secured the help of a London Wildlife Trust development worker. Larger and smaller local businesses also generously donated.
“This garden is for the people who live in this area," adds Rosa. "It gives us somewhere near our homes to get some fresh air."

Words & Photos: Paul Coleman, September 2011.

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Local people manage and own the site...