About
Turning underused public Luton land into community gardens since 2016
Meet your gardeners
We're Konni (on the left) and Dee (on the right). Together, we run the weekly sessions, make growing plans, look after the equipment, plant events and do all the admin stuff that needs to be done.
History
Edible High Town started in 2016 as a project run by the High Town Community worker Sam Willis and local environmental author and activist Jeremy Williams under the umbrella of Friends of High Town. Since then, the project went on to:
turned 8 overgrown patches in central High Town into productive growing spaces
motivated 50 volunteers each year to get stuck in an garden with us out in the fresh air in every weather
harvested loads of fresh produce, from potatoes to Rhubarb and Qinoa to lettuce and parsnips
planted 26 fruit trees and organised 3 fruit tree pruning courses where locals learned how to look after the trees
helped deliver an English For Speakers of Other Languages gardening course (Noah)
held an insect hotel competition with St Matthew’s Primary School
collected 100s of bags of rubbish
ran 17 free Qigong exercise wellbeing sessions out in the fresh air
Mentions and awards:
CPRE - The Countryside Charity - Highly Commended in 2023
Namechecked in the Luton 2040 strategy on 5. Waste reduction and consumer choices [PDF].
CPRE - The Countryside Charity - Highly Commended 2018 - Regenerating urban spaces in Luton
Edible Bury Park has joined the growing revolution: https://lutonmosques.org/reclaimyourneighbourhood
Governance
We're a small project. Too small to have our own accounts, for example. So thankfully, Hope Church Luton is taking us under their wings. They support us in all things governance and we follow their safeguarding, vulnerable adults and equal opportunities policies. They also help us manage our finances and accounts.
Quarterly steering group
To make sure we deliver on our objectives, we check in four times a year with a steering group that includes staff from:
Luton Council's Community Development Team
Hope Church
High Town councillors
local residents
Wider perspective
We work closely with Luton Council and want to help them achieve their citizen health, wellbeing, social fairness and environmental goals. We've actively helped shape Luton's Food Plan and an officer from the Social Justice Unit sits on our steering group.
