Cordale Housing Association plans to create a new community garden hub have been boosted by a £90,000 award from the Big Lottery Fund.

The funding will provide a three year project and will involve 30 volunteers and 250 individuals across the community of Renton.

Through previous funding from The Big Lottery the community garden project steering group, made up of local residents and volunteers, and supported by Cordale Housing Association, has developed detailed plans to regenerate a vacant plot of land surrounded by social housing in the heart of Renton village in West Dunbartonshire.

In addition to the build and landscaping element of the community garden hub project, structured activities will also be delivered on-site, including gardening and horticultural courses, healthy cooking and eating sessions using fruit and vegetables produced from the garden, nature walks, in addition to local residents using it as informal outdoor space and an community outdoor venue.

There will be continued participation in the project by the wider community, including local residents, older people, primary school pupils and staff, families and veterans groups, supporting integration and cohesion.

A new community garden coordinator will support the steering group to drive the project forward, whilst instilling wider community participation and ownership of the project. They will also oversee the garden volunteers who will run the garden hub on a day to day basis. Cordale Housing Association will provide technical input to the project and will support the steering group to develop governance and capacity, with sustainability plans being developed for the garden hub continuing under community-led management.

Cordale’s area housing manager, Kevin Nixon, who led the shaping of the bid and the integration projects vision on behalf of the steering group was pleased with the news.

He said: “On my first day in Renton walking around the area with the local committee, a committee member pointed the land out to me and said ‘we want to make that a community garden if we can’ and after much hard work we now have the funds and the planning permission to make it a reality. I think Cordale continue to punch well above its weight, so well done to the team there.”