Where d'you like them apples?

The Council would like Brockley Central readers to help it identify possible sites for a new community orchard in Brockley.

Here's the note of explanation from Cllr Dean Walton, who's also blogged about the issue.

One of the proposals for the Localities Fund was to establish/look at a Community Orchard. There were some big questions we had to answer before we knew whether it could be viable and as a result I proposed that we undertake a 'feasibility study' to set out answers to these questions and perhaps propose something that could ultimately be used as the basis for a bid within the mayor's fund supported by the Brockley Assembly.

We've got to the stage that within money available for the study £500 it will not be possible for 'site identification' survey to be included. However there would be enough money to review a named site or two in detail...here comes the Brockley Central Blog.

Do you think your readers would be interested in suggesting sites for a community orchard? I will probably cover the same issue on my blog at some point soon - and we can co-ordinate. I will also see if I can do some limited publicity around the parks/noticeboards if necessary.

The idea for an orchard found a lot of support during last year's Localities Fund debate and it would be a welcome addition to Brockley's growing list of green assets. We like the idea of a Brockley apple juice stall at future Summer Fayres, produced and sold by local school children.

We've asked Dean to tell us how big a site we need, but the example he references in his blog is home to 200 trees and 30 fruit bushes. We imagine Brockley's would need to be considerably smaller.

Are there any sites in need? At the recent Brockley Assembly, the old tennis court site on Lucas Street was mentioned as a semi-derelict area in need of conversion. That would be our suggestion.