A NORTHFIELD community garden has won the community accolade at The Natural Environment Awards (NEA).
Set up by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), the awards showcase and celebrate the community organisations, educational institutions, public sector bodies and businesses who are caring for local green spaces right across the region.
They also aim to inspire new projects and increase awareness about the importance of preserving the natural environment.
Almost 100 people gathered at Barclays new Eagle Lab in Birmingham city centre for the celebratory ceremony where winners were presented with their prizes by Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands and WMCA chair.
Masefield Community Garden won the community award, for transforming a disused piece of land into a public garden.
It is maintained by a team of 80 dedicated volunteers, children and adults, and visited by more than 500 people in 2023.
The garden grows fruit and vegetables, flowers and trees with a thriving wildflower area and a pond.
Regular activities promote health and wellbeing, deliver food growing skills to inspire and educate local people and encourage more environmentally friendly sustainable and healthy eating habits.
Kim Wildworn, community volunteer at Masefield Community Garden, said: “It has developed into the garden it is today over the last 10 years through a group of very avid volunteers, building it from something very small when it was a wasteland to the beautiful garden you see now.
“I really hope the garden can become even more accessible, particularly to those who might feel isolated in the community or to young disabled families and gardeners.”
