thebeginningofitall

The old Travis Perkins site on Mill Lane, Newbury in its current desolate, adandoned state, has a hidden beauty before it’s inevitable face lift.  In its current untamed state, it for a second, symbolises our thankfully still remaining fagility against nature.  Machete in hand, a 30 minute frenzy of sweat and exhaustion in the sub tropical jungles of eastern Bolivia outlined a refreshing human helplessness in me against nature.  I had done little to tame the Chusquea ridden thickets of impenetrable scrub. In a similar way, plants have so easily colonised the forsaken site on Mill Lane, thickets of Rosebay Willowherb in the expansion joints, clumps of Buddleia sprouting from the fragile tarmacadum edges and a beautiful dusting of moss on the northerly walls.

Driving past one day, struck by the emptiness and potential of the site, I was filled with an idea.  I saw an urban food forest, a haven of sustainable perennial crops, a community food source, an anti Tesco, a place where people could grow plants together, be educated and take home Newbury grown, globally inspired food.  A place where native crabs, thorn and sloe mingle with the likes of Szechuan Pepper, Siberian kiwis and Goji berry.  Anyone who’s interested could be involved in what would be our huge living grocery store, and what’s funny is, it couldn’t not work!  These plants want to grow, lots of them, given a little encouragment, can be, quite frankly, thugs.  The focus would be organic, perennial crops growing in relative harmony, cutting out the need for excessive labour, herbicides and annual re-planting.

Sadly, no doubt the site has already been snapped up by short sighted, capital hungry developers.  My ideas will be seen by many as bohemian and futile but when you think about it, they are educated, sensible, blindingly obvious and perhaps, just perhaps, completely necessary if Newbury wants to be a town for the future.  As coporate giants offset their carbon footprints with irrelevant, policy satisfying, box ticking ridiculousness, let’s do something exciting.  Who’s with me?