The thriving Cardiff community based around a once-derelict piece of land

A derelict piece of land has been transformed into a thriving community space to bring people together. Railway Gardens is a community space offering the people of Splott, and the rest of Cardiff, a place to enjoy gardening, express their creative skills, hold events and get involved with different activities. The community hub is run by Green Squirrel, an organisation with climate action and bringing communities together at its forefront.

Green Squirrel was founded by Rebecca Clark, who felt that there were barriers to living sustainably in Cardiff. After many years of hard work and determination, Rebecca, along with project manager Hannah Garcia, opened Railway Gardens on what was once a derelict piece of land in Splott.

Hannah said: “It started in 2014 as an idea from a local community growing group, Edible Adamsdown, who wanted a bit more space to grow. Green Squirrel got involved to try and help them find a bit more space and we discovered this derelict patch of land and started asking questions. Ten years later, we’ve managed to develop it into a growing space, small business space and a community hub.” For the latest Cardiff news, sign up to our newsletter here

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Having community spaces is vital in areas such as Splott to help bring people together and give them a place to feel included. Councillor for Splott and leader of Cardiff Council, Huw Thomas believes that spaces such as Railway Gardens are important for the area.

Cllr Thomas said: “It’s brilliant to have spaces like this in communities like Splott. This area was totally disused, it used to be a playground and had been closed for decades because of anti-social behaviour and we worked with Green Squirrel a couple of years back to bring it back to public use. It’s now got greenery in it, it has veg growing and really bringing people together in the local area.”

A plethora of activities happen across the week at Railway Gardens for people of all ages. These include after school activities, creative writing groups, a death café and a gardening club. The space is also used to hold community events aimed at bringing the people of Splott together. In June, Railway Gardens celebrated their second anniversary since opening in 2022 with their annual supper event. Join our WhatsApp news community here for the latest breaking news.

The annual Railway Gardens Supper involves locals coming together to enjoy music and poetry from local creatives while tucking into a delicious feast, where all are welcome to bring a dish. This year at the event the Oasis One World Choir, a Cardiff-based group made up of local residents as well as people from the refugee and asylum-seeking community, welcomed visitors to the event.

The night also saw musical performances from Francesca Dimech and Thoby Davis as well as a poetry reading from Railway Gardens volunteer Caitlin Rowan. Caitlin, 25, has been attending workshops and volunteering at Railway Gardens for just over a year since moving to Cardiff, and also takes along her three-year-old daughter who enjoys spending time at the hub. For the latest Cardiff news, sign up to our newsletter here

Caitlin wrote her poem ‘Change’ at the creative writing workshops that take place on Thursdays at the space. She said: “It’s helped provide a really big and important community to me. There’s free workshops if you volunteer here so I do gardening every fortnight and you learn so much and get to know people on a much deeper level and you feel like there’s more purpose for life.”

Caitlin’s poem is a response to the rising temperatures caused by climate change which is a topic important to Green Squirrel and Railway Gardens. The poem has been entered into a nation-wide competition hosted by Home Stage, where the winner will receive a £10,000 cash prize. To listen to Caitlin’s poem, ‘Change’, and vote for her by liking the video, visit here.

Railway Gardens offers a unique space in Cardiff where greenery and growing spaces are available for the community to use. Councillor Ed Stubbs, councillor for Splott, says bringing the space back into use was really important to the Splott community.

He said: “Events like this are really important, they bring our community together, they give us a shared experience. It also gives people the chance to volunteer, to give something back. That’s why bringing this space back into use is really important.”