Residents are joining forces to make Knowle West a healthier place with the help of a £20,000 funding boost.
Shaping Places, an NHS and local authority programme, aims to improve community health through change in local social, environmental and economic systems, from food security to mental health and fear of anti-social behaviour.
In Knowle West, community-led solutions are focused on food and nature. Kelly McCarthy, Cllr of Bristol East, which currently includes part of Knowle, said:
“Food policy is the answer to a lot of our problems.”
In addition to selling fresh produce, flowers, herbs, and other locally grown products, Red Catch Garden also hosts nature, gardening, and other creative activities.
Mike Cardwell has been leading the development of Shaping Places in the area.
A former frustrated social worker, he co-founded RedCatch Community Garden seven years ago, transforming a bowling alley in Knowle into a vibrant, natural space for food growing, tai chi, art therapy and a host of other social activities that promote wellbeing.
Free weekly “Welcoming Spaces” community lunches are available to all who attend, no questions asked.
Mike believes food is key to improving the quality of life in the community.
“People are interested in what we grow and are gaining an understanding of what food miles are and what is nutritious,” he said.
“It’s a trickle-down approach; it’s not like, ‘Stop eating ultra-processed foods right away.’ People come, look around, buy herbs to grow in their gardens and use in their cooking. They learn from each other.”
“Welcoming Spaces is great because it means people can have a delicious home-cooked meal at least once a week.”
Mike formed a group of residents to co-design Shaping Places.
“They’re local people, they have all kinds of experiences, they live in the community, so we asked them what they thought would work,” he said.
The garden hosts Food Justice Week events and is part of a citywide strategy to improve equitable access to healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food.
Three ideas came to mind.
The microgrants, provided with support from Knowle West Alliance, will help cover the costs of raised flower beds for educational cultivation at Ilminster and Connaught schools, and the Belfast Walk Community Garden, which will grow traditional beans for ‘baked beans’ cookery workshops.
Mike is excited:
“One billion Heinz tins are made from imported beans every year – these are British-grown beans that we could grow and cook with instead.”
Mike said they also plan to set up hanging baskets – some edible – on Newquay Road to “send a strong message that we care about this area and can help beautify it”.
The second Shaping Places initiative loaned slow cookers to families identified by GPs and schools, and the Square Food Foundation delivered ingredients to participants, enabling them to cook nutritious family meals despite budget and time constraints.
The remaining £13,000 of the funding will be used towards a ‘Community Cook-Off’ project, where meals will be cooked and served to people in the community ‘as far as they can pay’.
For this project, Redcatch Garden Cooks partnered with Connaught Oasis Food Hub, providing space to cook and store meals in a large communal freezer.
The ultimate goal is to provide a £2 meal for residents who attend the Welcoming Spaces lunches.
“The price will be comparable to a meal in Iceland, but it will be more nutritious and climate-friendly,” Mike says. “We’ll use as much produce as possible, cook everything from scratch, and not use anything super processed.”
He acknowledges that the biggest challenge is producing enough fresh vegetables to meet demand, but this can be tackled by using local suppliers such as Rush Greens and a local quota system that gives any surplus to service providers.
“What we really need is for the council to drive it forward with allotment holders,” Mike says. “For now we’re being pragmatic – we try to buy local wherever we can.”
Fresh vegetables are grown in Red Catch, but Mike says it’s difficult to grow enough to meet the demand of the local community.
As part of Food Justice Week, Rep. Kelly McCarthy visited RedCatch Gardens, which is now included in her district due to district boundary changes this year.
“Projects like this approach food from a very positive angle – not just telling people, ‘Don’t do that,’ but demonstrating that food can be healthy, that you can play a role in growing your food, and that there’s a social aspect to it as well,” she said.
“The Red Catch is a repeatable model.”
“The most compelling aspect of the impact of food policy is public health,” McCarthy said.
“Today, people are more likely to die from lifestyle-related diseases than from communicable diseases.
“Bristol has a fantastic food culture, but it also has food deserts which have dire consequences for public health.”
She said the local community could benefit from more growth projects.
“There are lots of great projects out there – Grow Wilder, community and dementia friendly plots – but whilst the council can provide the land, it tends to take great people from the community who have ambition.”
“Stockwood has been part of my constituency for 19 years and we have lots of green space, some of which could be used for growing food and for community orchards. The issue isn’t where, it’s who does it.”
“My role is to support people who want to make these things happen. Sometimes it’s just about connecting people together, and Bristol is a fantastic place for that.”
Photo: Ursula Billington
