On 19^th September, I had the huge privilege of attending the opening of Northern Roots, the UK’s largest Urban Farm and Eco Park, which is situated in Oldham. It was a fantastic day, with thousands of local residents coming to the site to see what it has to offer. With a new visitor centre, café restaurant, urban farm, play area and acres of green space for people to enjoy, it is a jewel in the heart of Oldham.

For the past 6 years, I have been a director and trustee of the charitable social enterprise that runs Northern Roots. As someone who has spent their entire career promoting and supporting co-operatives and social enterprises, I am hugely proud of what the Northern Roots team have achieved under the leadership of CEO Anna da Silva and Chair Cllr. Abdul Jabbar.

I originally got involved because we were asked to organise a two-day “E3M Alchemy” event in Oldham back in 2018. Working closely with Oldham Council, we helped develop ideas for transforming an underused, problematic, 160-acre site in the town into a green resource that could be a real asset for the local community, centred on food growing and production. A group of 85 people spent 2 days exploring how to create a model for the site that would be a catalyst for community health and wellbeing, conservation, new leisure opportunities, skills development, employment, enterprise creation and service transformation.

The council had come up with the idea 2 years earlier and we were proud to help in moving the initial ideas into something concrete, bringing new perspectives on how everyone could do their bit to make Northern Roots succeed.

After the event, the council approved some initial funding to support the development of the project. A charitable social enterprise was set up as a vehicle to work in partnership with the council in taking the initiative forward.

Since then, it has been a process of long and hard work. The council was able to access substantial funding for regeneration of the area, which supported construction work and improving the site, while Anna and her team successfully raised revenue funding for the development phase of the project. With virtually no physical resources on the site, they managed to initiate a series of activities to bring things to life including a phase one urban farm, environmental improvements, cultural events, a natural health service, involvement of new small businesses, training and learning. This work culminated in the launch at the weekend.

Looking ahead, there is still a lot of work to do, ensuring long term sustainability of Northen Roots through a range of different income streams so it can be an asset for community benefit down the generations for the people of Oldham and Greater Manchester. The opening on the 19^th was an important milestone but given the size of the site and the potential it offers, it is really just the beginning.

The main thing is for people to visit Northern Roots and make the most of everything it has to offer. I would urge you to a make visit – enjoy a walk around the site, a meal and drink the café, buy some local produce, discover more about nature and the history of the site. There is a special programme for schools, so teachers should consider bringing their classes. As someone who organises lot of events, I can’t wait to hire some space to run a seminar or workshop there – perhaps even another “E3M Alchemy”, bringing the story full circle.