A COMMUNITY project is ready to spring from the ground as soon as charity status is achieved.

Much-needed allotments are part of the plans for a popular green space, which was once threatened with housing development.

Last June, developer Haboakus scrapped its controversial £30m project to build nearly 250 homes on the former allotments at Pickards Small Field and Kembrey Grass due to unforeseen delays and opposition from residents and councillors.

Now the Hreod Burna Parkway Preservation Group is well under way with its project to create a community forest there and reinstate about 50 allotment plots, which are already in demand by green-fingered residents.

Steve Thompson, group chairman, said that they were now awaiting charity status before the council can hand the land over to them, which could happen by October.

Mr Thompson, a retired council gardener, said the group hoped to sign a 25-year lease for the land with owner Swindon Council, enabling the volunteers to start to let out the plots, apply for grants to further improve the area, and launch a £1,000 appeal to buy 10 English elm trees for the community forest.

He said: “This is a real community project which everyone is coming together on.

“We are getting a really positive response to it and it is not only in Gorse Hill, we are getting people from all over Swindon cycling to see see it.

“We can’t do the allotments until we get the charity status but already we have had interest that would take up half of the allotments planned.

“We hold meetings on the second Tuesday of every month where we discuss the charity plans and what work we are going to do once the land is ours.

“We are hoping to get the charity status around October time and then from there we are really expecting things to get off the ground.”

Despite the land being in Gorse Hill, Stratton Parish Council have been assisting the group to ensure it gets the go-ahead and in April paid £2,500 to secure a contractor to plough over the site back in April.

In return the Stratton parishioners will get 50 per cent of the plots with the rest available to anyone who expresses an interest.

The Hreod Burna Parkway Preservation Group meet on the second Tuesday of Every month at the Gorse Hill Community Centre at 7pm and all are welcome.

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