Meanwhile Gardens

Meanwhile Gardens was created from waste ground within a working class/immigrant district in what was then referred to as "North Paddington". This space had become available following tenement slum clearance and rehousing in the early 1970s. The park was created by community effort in 1976, initiated by local artist, sculptor and engineer Jamie McCulloch, who led a neighbourhood group to resist speculative commercial development taking over the site.^[1]

McCulloch successfully petitioned Westminster City Council to consider allowing community gardening to use the space instead. While this was being decided in court, the Council issued a Meanwhile, Permit to prevent any activity taking place on the site.^[2] Eventually, the community won their case and the Meanwhile Gardens Community Association was established. Although the land was now protected, no funds were allocated for its further development as a park or garden.^[2] The developing park was named "Meanwhile Gardens" as "an act of defiance", as an ironic nod to the Meanwhile, Permit, and to reflect the potential impermanence of the park's existence (due to the continued ambivalence of Westminster City Council towards the project, and the ongoing threat of the space being taken over in the future by commercial land developers).^[1]

From the start, the Meanwhile Gardens project was intended to involve all members of the local community, utilising any available skills and helping people to explore and develop fresh ones.^[1] The work was begun by a band of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers, using donated plants and materials.^[2] Further advice was provided by the landscape section of the Greater London Council, under John Medhurst.^[3]

The growing community gardens became a "green lung" within a densely populated London neighbourhood,^[2] and maintained its policy of allowing all members of the community to have opportunities. By the early 1980s, partly thanks to favourable funding by the Greater London Council, the Manpower Commission and others, park features and activities included an extensive BMX bike ramp system and an affiliated boating/boatbuilding club in addition to skateboarding, concerts and parties.^[4][5]

In 1981, film-maker Steve Shaw made a short documentary about the park's origins and its ongoing community, which was shown on Channel 4 in 1983.^[4][6]

Circa 1990, the Mind mental health charity took over the running of a half-acre space within the park as "The Wildlife Garden", hosting a range of horticulture and nature-based programmes teaching both the foundation of good gardening practices and the focused, mindful engagement of all the senses with their surroundings.^[2] The Wildlife Garden won the UK-MAB Urban Wildlife Award for Excellence in 2008.^[7]

In 1999, Westminster City Council granted a longer-term lease for part of the park.^[1] In 2000, various refurbishment were made to assorted park spaces by landscape architects Planet Earth, with support from National Lottery funding and from the British Waterways Board.^[3] The Meanwhile Gardens Community Association currently operates out of an unleased disused factory building in the north-west corner of the park, simply referred to as "the Factory Building".^[8] In 2007, the MGCA (alongside other community members and local ward councillor Pat Mason) successfully fought off an attempt to develop the western end of the park for new commercial housing.^[5][9]

The current park features community gardening, volunteering opportunities, the Play Hut (a purpose-built, eco-friendly community centre for young children and their parents and carers, free to Kensington & Chelsea residents), one of London's oldest skateparks (an open-to-all, free-to-use facility with three interlocking bowls of various sizes), a Moroccan garden, and play equipment.^[2][10]

Meanwhile Gardens has also had a long-term association with public music, featuring space for steel bands to rehearse and perform (the Metronomes Steel Orchestra, founded in 1973 by Phil Dubique and Irvin Corridan, has been the resident band since 1989),^[11] and hosting a regular busker's festival.

Meanwhile Gardens is situated on the mutual border of Westbourne and Kensal Town, immediately north-west of Westbourne Park tube station and the Westbourne Park stretch of the Westway. It is bounded by the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal running along its north edge, Kensal Road along its north-western edge, Elkstone Road along its south-eastern edge, and Great Western Road along the eastern edge. There are entrances from the canal towpath and neighbouring streets, with the formal address for the park being in Kensal Road.

Trellick Tower is situated immediately south of and adjacent to the park, a little west of the midpoint.^[12]