A community gardening group in Canton says it needs more volunteers to help create a greener city.
Canton Grows Wild plant flowers, vegetables and bushes where they can in urban areas, to bring people closer to nature.
The group want to encourage more people to experience the natural environment, after Cardiff was criticised for a lack of green space last year.
And Cardiff Council says people are welcome to propose ideas on how to use green areas.
Canton Grows Wild have been active for a number of years, and after pausing work over winter, the group now want to encourage more people to get involved for the spring. They say it is important for young children in particular to experience of nature close to where they live.
David Kilner is one of the volunteers. He says green projects can help to bring local communities closer together.
“In Cardiff, our houses are very close together, and there’s a lack of small parks and playing spaces where we can go and have five minutes away from our ever-increasingly busy lives,” Mr Kilner told CJS News.
“That means the green spaces we do have are even more important, so we can take shabby corners and turn them into beautiful wildflower meadows. Ultimately, we want to provide something where people can engage with their neighbours or talk to someone they have never spoken to before.”
The group’s aim is to have a bumper spring season, and it will be the first since the Ordnance Survey reported that just eight percent of Cardiff is made up of green spaces. In contrast, 16 percent of Birmingham, and 15 percent of Nottingham, are green areas.
Despite these figures, Cardiff does have a number of large public parks, and the council encourages people to make the most of them. Ramesh Patel, the Labour councillor for Canton, is also chair of the council’s environmental scrutiny committee. He says the authority welcomes ideas from residents about how green areas can be improved.
“There’s always more we could do, as with anything in life, but I do feel the council is doing as much as it possibly can. What we welcome is residents coming back to us with ideas of what they want,” Cllr Patel said.
