Wood Green: rooftop garden and new food-based identity

The challenge for Wood Green

Wood Green town centre suffers from three main challenges:

• lack of high-quality shopping and eating opportunities
• poor air quality
• night-time safety issues.

Alongside this, local people have been some of the worst affected by COVID-19. Many have lost their jobs or are on a low income.

Wood Green High Road is home to many predominantly small businesses. There’s also The Mall, a large shopping centre and residential complex. It’s as busy as Oxford Street. But its visitors don’t spend much – a reflection of the wider economic challenges.

Rooftop garden and food-based vision

The Future Wood Green Business Improvement District is working with Haringey Council to develop a new food-based identity for the area.

They are focusing on:

• green skills
• growing
• the food economy.

They plan to create a growing space and rooftop garden on the underused car park roof of The Mall shopping centre. The project will create a new green space in an area that needs it.

The new growing space will provide fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices for the area. The produce will:

• support local supply chains
• provide employment and skills opportunities for those most affected by the pandemic.

The site will grow traditional fruits and vegetables alongside items used in the cuisine of different cultures represented in Wood Green. These specialist items normally have to be imported from abroad or are wholly unavailable locally.

There will also be improvements at the street level to make it easy for people to find and access the new space.

Engagement and co-design

There will be a programme of events, training and engagement to get the local community involved.

The project partners will use their connections with different local networks and involve them as the project develops.

Key groups include:

• Wood Green Young Voices
• the Youth Advisory Board
• the Wolves Lane volunteers and partners
• local businesses
• residents, particularly those from estates next to The Mall.

The new growing space will be supported by Wolves Lane, a thriving three-acre site of horticultural innovation and community engagement in north Wood Green.

The project partners plan to move some of Wolves Lane’s already highly successful activities into the centre of Wood Green. This will create a community-focused ‘seed to table’ pipeline, as well as new jobs. These will be key to running and managing the new site.

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