Gardening 'guerrillas' take on city park

Members of a group of volunteer gardeners have taken it upon themselves to transform a city park in Sheffield.

Dubbed the "guerrilla gardeners", they began by replacing brambles and vine weed with flowers at Abbeyfield Park in a bid to cheer up people during the pandemic.

The group runs two gardening sessions a week and holds volunteer days where members talk to people about gardening.

Organiser Clare Burnell said: “I’d recommend it: put some flowers into your local park and get some other people to join.”

Starting their work in October 2020, Mrs Burnell said members spent a long time clearing up the "nasty" brambles along the borders at the park.

But by the summer of 2021 they decided that "people may want some flowers to cheer themselves up".

The volunteers could be considered "guerrilla gardeners" as they originally did not have permission to plant the flowers, Mrs Burnell said.

However, she added that they now worked with Sheffield City Council.

Mrs Burnell said the council was not able to maintain the park on its own as the authority's parks team which was once 70-strong had since been reduced to 10.

“They work really hard. We talk to them about what we’re doing," she said.

"We also really value local people coming in and talking to us. We value ideas."

Mrs Burnell’s husband, Al, who is also part of the group, said the volunteers enjoyed being able to make decisions on how the park looked.

He added that "you can't have too many gardeners".

“If the council did get more manpower, it’s a big enough park to still need us to be doing what we do as well," he said.

Mrs Hodson, another volunteer, said: “When my little one was tiny, I used to come here all the time. Obviously it didn’t look anything like this, it’s wonderful.

"The playgroup comes here sometimes and the local schools come in here. So, it has lots and lots of knock-on effects as well as us just enjoying doing it.”

Councillor Kurtis Crossland, chair of the communities, parks and leisure committee, said: “The Friends of Abbeyfield Park are a fantastic group who care so much about the site that provides so much joy to the surrounding community.”

"As a council we work closely with groups to support them in delivering fantastic work within our parks and green spaces where we need to," he added.

"We are mindful of each individual setting, the maintenance requirements of these and what can be done to improve them.

"We will then develop plans with local groups to try and maximise the potential of each site.”

It was a “pleasure” working with the volunteers on various projects in the park, Mr Crossland said.

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