A LOCAL gardening group’s project to promote a community growing space and social hub will see the opening of 49 allotment plots in Ardrossan this month.

The Three Towns Growers will open its 1.5 hectare site at Elm Park on February 20.

As well as allotment plots, the project will have extensive gardens and a community health hub where the group will run courses and workshops.

Chairperson of Three Towns Growers, Denise Gilmour, said that the project is about far more than just gardening.

Denise, a chemistry teacher and Eco Schools coordinator at Ardrossan Academy, told the Herald: “The Three Towns Growers are about more than an allotment site. The community hub is going to be holding workshops for the local community.

“Some of the things we want to include are gardening clubs but we also plan to have things like meditation classes, arts and crafts groups, and learn how we use wild herbs. We’ve got lots of ideas.

“The really important thing is about social inclusion and promoting people’s skills locally. We also plan for local people to do classes themselves because people have so many skills that they can share within the community. We want to provide a social environment where everyone is welcome and anyone can get involved. That’s very important.”

The Three Towns Growers was formed with the purpose of creating allotments and community gardens to provide growing space for residents and groups. The idea is to give families, individuals, and community groups in the Three Towns the opportunity and training to live a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle.

The allotment plots have been so popular that all 49 spaces have already been allocated ahead of the site opening. Anyone wishing to rent an allotment must now sign up to a waiting list.

Denise said: “We provide an area where people can come along and be in the garden. But it’s also to raise awareness that you can grow your own vegetables. You don’t need a huge area to grow your own food. So much can be done in a small space.

“We’ve had a phenomenally good response and everyone’s been really positive. We hope to maintain a good relationship with our neighbours.

“We’ve done our best to make sure that everyone is happy and so we’ve taken our time with this. We hope that once we start working the plots it will look really nice.”

A National Lottery grant of almost £10,000 last year allowed the Three Towns Growers to purchase a recycled portable cabin and shipping container which are to be adapted into the community hub, meeting room and communal tool base.

More recently, the Woodland Trust donated 420 wild foraging trees, which the Three Towns Growers plan to use to enhance the fenced boundary in place.

While there is still a lot of work to do on the site, Denise said that the community hub will hopefully be ready “as soon as possible”.

She said: “In terms of the community hub we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Just now, it is two empty portacabins so we need to furnish them and make them habitable. We’re hoping for funding to keep us going.

“We are thinking of using the trees from the Woodland Trust on the boundary round the site, rather than just having a green fence. Obviously, we wont be using them all for that but we’ve got a really good relationship with Streetscene and so we’ll speak to them about other potential uses for the trees.”

Denise added: “One of the things we want to do is find out exactly what the local people want. It’s not about us.

“We will have a steering group of local people to see what they want to see in the hub. It’s about the local community deciding what they want to see. One of the things we’re going to do is have a board up in the hub to allow people to put up any ideas they have.

“Another thing is that the place is very dark in the evenings at the moment so we’re also looking at lighting for the park.

“We would possibly be addressing that as a committee in the future. There are lots of things we want to do.”

For more information about the Three Towns Growers, visit their Facebook page atwww.facebook.com/threetownsgrowers.