Our recent highlights:

In November 2021, we celebrated a major win: the Mayor of London Climate Kick Start awarded Barking Food Forest and Riverside Bridge School £10K to create a Rainwater Harvesting System. The Bridge School Kitchen and Barking Food Forest will each have a system to capture rainwater and use it for watering the garden. What’s more, it will include a solar powered automatic watering system, so that the school plants thrive even during the long hot summer holidays.

Students from Riverside Bridge and Riverside Secondary school also got to meet Mayor Sadiq Khan at an exciting award ceremony in central London. They were inspired to hear of some of the other projects by schools in London and the Mayor’s ambitious goals for nature and wellbeing in the capital. Best of all the students were recognised and celebrated for being champions of positive environmental change that will benefit all London’s residents, wildlife and ecology.

In August 2022, GROW was a produced by Creative Barking and Dagenham and Thames Life in partnership with Creative Wellness, Nice Bunch and Soul and Sound to activate spaces allowing people to explore their creativity. Gardening and arts sessions took place at the site and were well attended by local people.

In July 2024, we hosted a community event with Barking Riverside Limited to celebrate the completion of improvement works on Handley Page Road. Over 50 residents joined in to help plant up the new “parklet” on Handley Page Road with perennial herbs, woody shrubs, and flowers. The new planters have helped create an area where residents can sit, relax and socialise. The project has also helped reduce traffic congestion, making it safer for pedestrians and cyclists.