From Warm Hub to Urban Grows: New Community Garden Takes Root at The Share Centre
Updated: Sep 8
A once neglected outdoor space at The Share Centre on Stow Hill has been transformed into a thriving community garden, creating new opportunities for local people to grow food, learn skills, improve wellbeing and connect with their community. The new Urban Grows initiative, led by Urban Circle Newport, officially opened in August and forms part of the organisation's wider Urban in the Community programme, supported through National Lottery Awards for All funding.
The garden will provide a welcoming community space where residents can take part in activities including food and herb growing, sustainability education, carpentry, cooking healthy meals on a budget and wellbeing-focused sessions. Organisers hope the project will help strengthen community connections while giving people practical skills and greater confidence.
The development of Urban Grows builds on the success of activities previously delivered at The Share Centre, including community Warm Hub sessions that brought local people together during the winter months. Those activities helped create stronger community connections, identify local needs and generate ideas for future projects that could have a lasting impact on the area.
Mibinti Webbe, Youth and Community Worker at Urban Circle and project lead, said: "Seeing people come into the garden and begin imagining what they could grow, learn and share was a special moment. This is about much more than gardening. We want it to become a welcoming space where people can improve their wellbeing, build useful skills and feel part of a community."
Urban Grows is part of THRIVE, Urban Circle's climate justice pathway, and draws inspiration from the organisation's longstanding relationship with the Rastafari Indigenous Village in Montego Bay, Jamaica, particularly around regenerative growing, Ital cooking and the use of medicinal herbs.
Urban Circle also plans to involve local residents and garden users in shaping the future of the project, ensuring community voices help guide activities and influence how the space develops over time.
Dan Coast, Community Development Officer at GAVO, said:
"It's fantastic to see a group take an idea that began through earlier community activity and develop it into something with such long-term potential. The Warm Hub sessions showed the value of creating spaces where people can come together, build relationships and share ideas. Urban Grows is a great example of how investment from the National Lottery can help a community turn those ideas into reality. As the project develops, it will provide opportunities for people of all ages to learn new skills, improve their wellbeing, grow food and build stronger connections with others in their neighbourhood."
Urban Grows demonstrates how community-led projects can evolve from small beginnings into lasting assets that benefit local people. By transforming an underused space into a vibrant community resource, the project is helping to create a greener, healthier and more connected future for Newport residents