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Chair/Facilitator: Anna da Silva, Project Director

This session will be an interactive workshop to support the development of Northern Roots, which will be the UK’s largest urban farm and eco-park on Snipe Clough, 160 acres of under-used green space in the heart of Oldham. Northern Roots is keen to harness the expertise of experienced social investors and social enterprises to help develop the operating model for the site.

  • How can Northern Roots develop a co-operative ecosystem that creates opportunities for local people and enterprises, and contributes to local wealth building, while delivering products and services of the highest quality?

Project Director Anna da Silva will use this workshop to explore some of the practical challenges that the project faces in developing and implementing an inclusive licensing and operating model.

Anna da Silva

Anna da Silva has worked across the media, international development, and the environmental sector for organisations including the BBC, the Economist, Médecins Sans Frontières, the UN and the RHS. She lived and worked in Africa and the Middle East for several years before shifting her focus to domestic projects. She specialises in early stage project development and organisational strategy and culture change. Her work has focussed on social justice, the causes and consequences of conflict, public engagement and behaviour change.

Anna relocated to the North West in 2011 as part of the leadership team that delivered the BBC’s move to Salford. Since 2016 she has been leading the project to create the Royal Horticultural Society’s new 154-acre Bridgewater Garden, in Salford, currently the largest gardening project in Europe. She took on the leadership of Northern Roots at the beginning of 2019.