Reclaim the Commons is a collective of community growing projects which aims to facilitate communication between residents with an interest in community growing in the Belfast City Council area.  

We aim to improve communication between people developing these spaces and decision makers, discussing how community groups and individuals are supported in this work, and support and help each other in making positive change for our communities. 

In the past 5 years we have visited each other’s sites, shared our skills and resources with each other, met with City Councillors to discuss issues of importance to community growing in the city and we made a presentation to the People and Communities Committee. We jointly organised the Belfast Gathering and organised open days of over 20 community growing sites across Belfast for 3 years running. We have taken action to make our gardens more inclusive and diverse and continue to prioritise social justice outcomes in our work. We meet regularly and have a WhatsApp group to support each other and plan future action. We welcome new members. Please contact miriam@communitygardensupport.org.uk for more information. 

The current secretariat for the collective is Community Garden Support, who are funded to do this work by the Esmee Fairburn Foundation.