Since we concluded our National Campaign on young people and mental health, we have been exploring plans to transform the garden which surrounds our HQ into a place of relaxation, peace and community for the workers, parishioners, young people in the area and all YCW members.
As you may know, our HQ is currently in the centre of Europe’s biggest industrial park, next to a busy daytime shopping parade, with effectively no communal green spaces to use. In many ways it can best summarised by Pope Francis’ description of our cities as:
huge, inefficient structures, excessively wasteful of energy and water (in which) neighbourhoods, even those recently built, are congested, chaotic and lacking in sufficient green space. We were not meant to be inundated by cement, asphalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature.
We have been working with the Diocese of Salford, designers, funders, local politicians and former members to keep working through the scheme and bring it to fruition. Recently, we made a big step forward in clearing the site from years of waste and overgrown shrubbery.
The front of the house - before and after
The path alongside the garden towards the Church - before and after
Grotto - before, during and after
The work was carried out by MPT, who have been working on the new Metrolink line and offered their time to help free of charge. The Grotto improvements were done by YCW supporters and parishioners from Oldham, who equally gave their time as a contribution towards the project.
We want to say a massive thank you to all those involved, including Kevin Flanagan from St Antony’s Centre who helped organise much of this work.
There are further plans currently being worked on to keep up this progress and get the new Garden space opened as soon as possible.
