Gerddi Courtmead Gardens June 2006 David Mackie, Heather Parnell and Andrew Rowe Gerddi Courtmead Gardens on Court Road, Grangetown, Cardiff Gerddi Courtmead Gardens is a new community garden situated on Court Road in Cardiff’s Grangetown, which was developed in a partnership between Cardiff County Council, Butetown & Grangetown Healthy Living Programme and the Grangetown Community.  The project began by asking local residents in North Grangetown what they thought should happen on to a section of land on Court Road in order to improve the area. The most popular idea was to transform the space into a community garden and so, with lottery funding, the Neighbourhood Planning Team at Cardiff Council engaged Llanelli based Landscape architects Corscadden Associates to come up with a design concept. Three designs were created for the garden, and the residents then selected their favourite design to be implemented. CBAT was commissioned to work with the landscape architects to create an integrated public artwork and invited artists David Mackie, Heather Parnell and Andrew Rowe to create a work produced in close consultation with local residents. This included workshops with local schoolchildren and residents to create images through recounted stories and features relating to the area. Many of these images have found their way into the public artworks which comprise of 500 bronzes embedded into the garden’s floor.

A voluntary group made up of local residents, called the Friends of Gerddi Courtmead Gardens, have been meeting monthly since September 2005 with the aim of ensuring the garden is maintained for the benefit of the whole community and to organise events in the garden to encourage it’s use as a community resource. A documentary film is also being made about the garden called ‘Sewing Seeds for the Future’. With the help of lottery grant money, the Friends of Gerddi Courtmead Gardens have enlisted the help of film production company media4creative to train the group in how to use cameras and sound equipment, how to produce and direct as well as edit the film right down to a finished product. The film is available on DVD. Local residents are still welcome to get involved with the group and it is hoped that continued local involvement will ensure that improvements made to the garden are long-lasting and well maintained