Lambeth (Phase 1 - Completed)

The following Well London activities took place in the Larkhall target area.

Themed Projects

Be Creative, Be Well

• Trust Arts Project; Workshops included crafts,dance, photography and food art culminating in the "Big InternationalTea and Party”.
• Trust Arts Project; 'Springforward Festival' creative workshops.
• Sport Action Zone; A series of dance workshopsand taster sessions.

I'am going to make a bag and I've had the worse 6 months of my life and it just give me some hope again.

Project participant

Buywell

• Fruit & vegetable box scheme
• Lambeth Healthy Food Network
• Buywell Retail project

Eatwell

• Cook & Eat courses.
• Community Feasts were delivered in August 2008and 2009.

DIY Happiness

Eight DIY Happiness sessions.  Dare to Dream ideas that were developed included:

• Massage and pamper kits for women
• Trip to Skegness for children with specialneeds.
• Jewellery making course.
• An oven at children’s centre.

Mental Wellbeing impact assessment (MWIA)

MWIAs took place on the

• Springforward Mosaic workshops
• Stewarts Rd Adventure Playground.

Changing Minds

A number of Mental health awareness sessions took place in the local area.

Healthy Spaces

• Stewarts Road Adventure Playground Project

Activate London

• Basketball sessions at Larkhall Park
• Street dance sessions at Stockwell YMCA
• Street dance performances at the 2009 and 2010 Stockwell Festivals.
• Football sessions at Larkhall Park

Heart of the Community Projects

Training communities

This project provided training for the following Well London groups:

• WLDT members
• Well London Activators
• MWIA facilitators
• Young Ambassador

Training Communities also offered Personal support packages (PSPs).  Examples of training people chose included the following:

• CPCAB Advanced diploma in counselling
• CELTA course.
• Urban Bee Keeping.
• Steel Pan Workshops for young people.
• Baby massage instructor.

Youth.com

• Music project with CD production.

Related links

• Well London Delivery Team
• WellNet
• Active Living Map

Participant Data

Total participants; 1050

807 people reported an increase in healthier eating.
754 people reported increased access to affordable healthy food.
775 people reported an increase in levels of physical activity.
854 people reported that they felt more or much more positive.

A green oasis in the heart of London

Well London is a three-year partnership between seven organisations including environmental regeneration charity Groundwork London that works to improve the health and overall wellbeing of Londoners. This Healthy Spaces project in Stewarts Road aims to engage people in activities to improve the outdoor area, increase biodiversity and help improve physical and mental well-being.

Before the project began three years ago, Stewarts Road Adventure Playground in Larkhall, Lambeth, was an unsafe outdoor space with exposed drains, flooding, dumped rubbish and poor access into the new cabin that had been built there as a youth facility. The Well London project has improved the outdoor space by creating a vegetable garden, installing a pond, clearing rubbish and laying new paths and decking to make it safer and create disability access. There are also chickens, including rare breed silkies, living in Stewarts Road that are looked after by the community and provide fresh eggs that are sold and enjoyed locally.  This summer a beehive was installed and training given to local residents in how to care for it.

What originally started as a few simple raised beds three years ago has now grown into a thriving food-growing project. Young people from the nearby Larkhall and Patmore Estates can participate and learn about food growing in an urban setting.

There is a potting shed where all the food plants are grown to fill the eleven raised beds and numerous containers, which are used for growing a variety of fruits and vegetables including courgettes, tomatoes, carrots and blueberries.

Recently the local community enjoyed making carrot and courgette cakes with produce from the garden - including eggs from resident chickens and delicious jam from a bumper crop of strawberries in the spring.

There are two chicken houses on site that house sixteen hens from five different breeds. These include two rare breed white silkies called Fluffy and Snowflake, which are very docile and can be handled by children.

The first house was bought in 2009, which housed six hens, but in April 2010 a new bespoke chicken house was built. This is now home to fourteen hens from four different breeds while the first house is now home to the rare breed silkies. The new bespoke chicken house was built by members of Groundwork London’s employment programme, 'New Horizons', which gives unemployed people the chance to gain practical skills and experience to improve their future employment prospects.

All the chickens are organically fed and let out every morning for most of the day where they have free range over the adventure playground's outdoor grounds - occasionally they wander indoors too! The hen’s eggs are sold locally to the community and staff in nearby offices to raise money, which feeds the chickens and helps fund further food growing and gardening activities.

Since the project began, Stewarts Road Adventure Playground has turned into a haven for rare wildlife thanks to the new pond, food growing and gardening activities that now take place.

The space is now home to breeding black redstarts, which are one of Britain's rarest breeding birds. The birds nest in the surrounding industrial estate and can often be seen singing from the zip slide wires or perched on top of the swings in the playground. In late summer, they often bring their newly fledged young into the playground to hunt for spiders and insects near the ball court and in the vegetable garden.

There is currently an application in process to install a green roof on the youth centre which will attract more birds and allow a place for them to settle and breed, further increasing the biodiversity in Stewarts Road.

In spring 2010 a beehive was introduced to Stewarts Road Adventure Playground. This was the local children's idea after they became interested in bees following a visit to the Capel Manor Show in 2009. There they met the Middlesex Beekeeping Association and extracted some honey from the frames. There is now a newly established colony of bees consisting of around 9000 female workers and a single queen. Image 5

Twelve young people and local community members recently attended a beekeeping course that ran throughout August, leaving them confident to work with the bees on their own. In the future, those wanting to progress onto a recognised certificate in bee husbandry can sit an exam next summer after they have gained enough experience of working with the hive. The participants will pass on their knowledge to people in their own housing estates, youth clubs and schools. The hive will start producing honey next summer, which will be a sweet treat for the young people and an additional mini enterprise opportunity for them to fund further activities in Stewarts Road.

In addition to having rare birds, bees and chickens living on the site, there is also a thriving wildlife pond that was built by children and Groundwork London's youth workers in summer 2009. The pond is home to a wealth of wildlife including a variety of dragonfly, frogs, newts, pond skaters and greater backswimmers.

The pond has also proved to be a great educational resource for children and young people to go pond-dipping and discover all the wildlife it has to offer.

March 2011