Emma, our Community Engagement Officer visited the Setting Dyke Community Greenspace to see how local residents used their Hull Maritime Community Grant.
I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Setting Dyke Community Greenspace to see the information boards that were created by local families and community group Friends of Garrowby Orchard, funded through Hull Maritime via our Community Grants Scheme.
Setting Dyke Community Greenspace is in Derringham Ward and is cared for and managed by the community group Friends of Garrowby Orchard.
For their community grant scheme project, the Friends of Garrowby Orchard (FoGO) worked with an artist from the local area to collaboratively create three information boards for the Community Greenspace.
As Paul from Friends of Garrowby Orchard explains, “Over a series of themed workshops of water, nature and heritage, young participants who live around and use the Greenspace made artwork that reflected their interests and experiences of the Greenspace. The artwork was then collated into one artwork that included more detailed information to help visitors to the Greenspace understand the importance of the site for flood risk management, nature and heritage. It importantly helps visitors and residents understand how the Setting Dyke Community Greenspace historically and currently helps manage excess water at the edge of the city and is linked to the tidal flows of the Humber estuary.”
I’d been looking forward to seeing the information boards and the community greenspace and on a sunny December morning, I had the chance to visit the site and have a tour of the space by the community group who look after it as well as some of the families who helped to design the information boards.
Whilst looking around it was clear how nature really thrives in the community greenspace, and we were lucky enough to see a bird of prey whilst walking around. The group told me how they had seen a great abundance of wildlife in the space including deer, snakes, foxes, hedgehogs, woodpeckers, frogs and much more!
The important role that the Setting Dyke Community Greenspace plays as a blue-green space in the city’s flood risk management was also clear and the project has provided the opportunity to have more discussions and increase people’s understanding of this issue.
Paul added: “The Community Grant allowed for more research on the history of the site and for the local young people to engage with that history and the nature they have experienced on site. It importantly confirmed the essential role of the greenspace as an aquagreen within the city’s flood risk management strategy and the impact of rising sea levels and climate change on their greenspace.”
Everyone’s passion for the community greenspace was clear and it was a delight to be shown around and see what the support from our community grant had helped to create.
I’d like to finish by thanking everyone who showed me around and congratulating the group on a great project!
