Railway Gardens is celebrating a year since it secured funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. In that time the project has involved 74 volunteers, been a part of 56 events, and included 1,077 people in its various activities. The project is based on the derelict site of a former playground near a railway track in Splott, Cardiff.

Starting with a wildlife pond, the group has since gone on to add three new meadows to the space, four wildlife habitat boxes and one log pile. On top of this, an association with groups such as Extinction Rebellion have helped spread how important behaving in an environmentally sustainable way is to their local community.

As a community resilience hub, they aim to offer a welcoming green space for the community to grow veg, learning new skills, or a even just a cuppa with friends and neighbours.

But the project hasn’t been without its challenges; as difficulties keeping the plants alive over the summer heatwaves and problems utilising one of its larger spaces, ‘the hub’, mean the site has plenty of untapped potential going into year two.

Project manager Hannah Garcia explains how the project is shaping up for the future…