Create Space for Nature

Izzy: Hello and welcome to the Carbon Copy Podcast with me, Isabelle Sparrow. 

Kat: And me Kat Machin. 

Izzy: In this series, Do Something Bigger, we’re exploring a whole range of different ways you can make a BIG positive impact in the place where you live or work. We’re talking about working together to make a difference to the things that really matter in your area – helping to tackle climate change and boost nature – but also to just make your place, a better place! The podcast accompanies our year-long campaign, 25 Big Local Actions in 2025, so unsurprisingly, there will be 25 different episodes in total. If this week doesn’t fill you with inspiration, then do come back for the next one, which might be more relevant to you! 

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So, Kat, welcome back, and thanks for joining me for today’s episode: Create Space For Nature. 

Kat: Thanks for having me – I’m really excited for this one! 

Izzy: Me too – and to be honest I’m expecting you to do most of the talking! 

Kat: That, I mean, that does tend to be my way, so I’ll lean into that. That’s fine. 

Izzy: So do you want to talk a little bit about what your role is specifically, because I know that this is pretty much your bag this episode, and maybe a little bit about the campaigns that WWF is working on at the moment around bringing nature to more people. 

Kat: Yeah. So I’m Head of Community Engagement Campaigns at WWF UK. And what that role basically means is that some of the campaigns you might see as you’re going out and about, that could be Earth Hour or it could be Earth Day and loads of celebrations around what people can do for the planet. My job is to make sure that that’s relevant to people in their communities, that we’re meeting them where they are, and that when we’re campaigning on issues around nature and climate, we’re doing so with citizen voice alongside us. So we’re not just speaking from the point of view of a large organisation that’s been working on wildlife for many decades. We’re talking to people who are going to be most impacted by those issues and putting forward what their solutions are as well. And I’m so excited about this conversation because for me, there is no better evidence that people in the UK and around the world want a more sustainable future, want a more positive future than looking at what they’re really doing in their communities already to make that happen and make people’s lives around them better.  

And so the relevance really for today is that WWF have launched a campaign called Prescription for Nature. It’s all based around a piece of research that says just 20 minutes in nature a day can really boost your physical and mental health. And that’s not news. Most people would probably agree that going outside and being in nature really benefits them. In fact, the latest research is that 89% of people feel that nature gives them a positive boost to their mental health. But the reality is in the UK, especially, most people aren’t able to access nature daily, and there’s lots of things that can prevent that, whether that’s time or location or just confidence. So as much as we can tell the story of communities that are creating that space, making it easier for people to connect to nature and to each other, we can demonstrate that when we restore nature, we restore ourselves. 

Izzy: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that we have found in having conversations with people for this episode is that whilst we have called the episode Create Space for Nature, actually it’s as much about creating nature for people and the people that are involved with these projects that we’re about to hear about. They’re creating spaces for their communities, for the people where they live, as much as they are creating those spaces for the nature itself. 

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Carbon Copy is a UK charity inspiring more big-thinking local action for climate and nature. We’re working with WWF, Climate Emergency UK and The Carbon Literacy Project this year to showcase 25 Big Local Actions for climate and nature. For more information, check out the show notes, AND if you enjoy listening to this episode, please do leave us a review or a rating – it really helps people to find us! 

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Izzy: So our first guest on today’s episode is professional footballer-cum-urban-gardening-hero, Tayshan Hayden-Smith. Tayshan started his organisation, Grow to Know, in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. This not-for-profit, based in the community of North Kensington, aims to make horticulture more inclusive, by inspiring, supporting, and educating young diverse gardeners through greening disused spaces across London. 

Tayshan: The Grenfell Tower tragedy was a catalyst in my life. I think people came together in search of solace and understanding and people started to congregate at different spaces. One of those was in Maxilla and some people expressed themselves through artwork. And actually I began by cleaning some of the walls for other people to paint. And then just saw this derelict bit of land, like brick raised beds. You’d walk past it every day and you wouldn’t really realise it or notice it. But for some reason that day just decided to pick up litter in it. And that quickly turned into people supporting and helping and seeing what we were doing. And then I would go to different garden centres and nurseries locally and ask for plants to put in the garden. And so what was a derelict unused barren bit of land then became this kind of sanctuary, this safe space for people to heal, to unify, to connect and then mobilise. But that mobilise piece wasn’t something that I was aware of until I was in it. 

Izzy: We asked Tayshan to tell us more about how he developed Grow to Know from this initial moment. 

It all happened quite organically and quite naturally. Yeah, it was very much like people passing, sharing a smile, having a conversation. And that conversation would then lead in many different directions. And then people would then feel like they were part of what we were doing. And so I’d call it more of a movement than anything else. And I thought I’d still call what we’re doing more of a movement than like a project, because it’s continuous and ever evolving. We’re not rigid or static. It’s something that will continue to evolve and grow. Life stood still. And in that stillness, we just were just going with a flow and ended up taking over five or six different spaces in Ladbrooke Grove, turning them into gardens. And actually what we did was that we kind of brought to the fore some of the spaces that had been forgotten, which then brought people forward to tell some of those stories of, “oh, that used to be this” and “that used to be that”. And I think this is what community is all about is like, how can we foster connections so that we can understand each other? How storytelling, like narratives, how can we reclaim our narratives and our identities in a very gentrified space? That’s kind of what underpinned a lot of the work that we do now, just being bold, brave, unapologetic and taking action. 

Kat: What Tayshan has done to respond to the grief of Grenfell, and he talked so eloquently about the silence and the pause that came from that. And building back from that silence, I thought was one of the most moving things I’ve heard recently. And I’ve known Tayshan’s story for a while, but hearing from him directly really kind of brought it home. And I think what is so telling about that is that for Tayshan just individually, I mean, he’s a he’s a footballer, he’s a lad that was kicking a ball about. And that’s what people in his area really knew him for. And then to see him gardening in response to the grief of Grenfell and the grief of losing his mum gave people the opportunity to see him in a different light and then see themselves in that different light, too. And he spoke so eloquently about reclaiming identity and reclaiming narrative. And all of that, I think, really speaks to the heart of what communities are able to do. And a lot of communities are coming into the nature space, not for nature, as you already said, but actually to respond to something, a community need or a community shock. What we know is that when communities come together, whether that’s to build back nature and spaces that have been derelict for a while or whether that’s to address hunger and the rise of food banks and all of this space has been created out of a lack of services, really, is that it builds those connections together. So when you’re more connected to nature, not only are you benefiting from the mental health of that, but more importantly, you’re connecting with other people. And we know there’s so much research out there that demonstrates that when communities are better connected, they’re more resilient. So when things happen, they’re able to bounce back quicker. And we know that in a climate future, we’re going to need to have that resilience baked in. 

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Izzy: Do you know someone with green fingers who could help bring a bit of nature into your community? Why not share this episode with them and help inspire more big-thinking local action where you live! Links to information about everything we’re discussing are available in the show notes, so make sure you explore further at the end of the episode. 

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Izzy: Our second guest is Kathy Barclay from a Newport based project run by local charity, Maindee Unlimited. Greening Maindee is a project that’s part of the Nature Neighbourhoods programme. And this is just one example of 18 across the whole of the UK that are being supported by WWF, RSPB and National Trust. We’ve met a couple of the other organisations before and they are led by the community and therefore very, very kind of aware of the specific issues in that community and the specific needs as well. Kathy told us more about why bringing more nature to this part of the city was important. 

Kathy: Maindee is the area sort of east of the River Usk in Newport. It’s home to a lot of people, lots of diversity, it’s a brilliant place to live. It’s very vibrant, very diverse and really interesting. People are very proud to live here, but it is in the top 10% of the most deprived areas of Wales. It’s also very nature deprived, because it’s only got, well, one of statistics I’ve got, is that it’s only got a third of a hectare of open green space, accessible green space for the 78000 population. So that’s giving you an idea of how little green space there is here. So our charity was really set up to try and rectify that to some extent. So increase the number of trees, improve the hedges and the local residents took it upon themselves to create pocket parks and in any little green space that they could find really. And then allow people to have access to all of those. So we’ve been persuading, cajoling, you know, asking anybody who have a little plot of land. Often it’s not council land, it’s an area owned by a church or housing associations. If they’ve got a little plot of land and a little bit of money and funding to help maintain that and to create things, then we are on the case. 

Kat: The most deprived areas in the UK are also the areas where it is most difficult to access nature. And even if there is nature there, often the people that are least likely to be getting access to it for whatever reason are those that are facing into multitudinal different levels of deprivation. You could be working multiple jobs, you could be caring for loved ones, you could be caring for children or grandparents or whoever it is in your life. It just makes it harder and harder and harder to access the benefits of mental health. And those are the people that would stand to gain the most from it. So that disparity is something that we really do need to address. And community groups like Maindee are right at the front and centre of that, responding directly to that need. And I think what we should be doing at WWF and other large charities like ourselves is trying to make it as easy as possible for people to do that, whether that’s unlocking funding or actually platforming what they’ve got to say so that they can be noticed by others that have got funding available to them. Because it will stand us in good stead and we will see not just the mental health benefits, but a society that is better functioning and therefore cheaper to run, more economic and healthier overall. So yeah, what they’re doing there is incredible. 

Izzy: One thing that I’ve noticed when listening to both Kathy and Tayshan was that there does need to be an incredibly passionate driving force behind the project. I mean, obviously, Tayshan was responding to the awful tragedy of the Grenfell Fire, as well as his own personal tragedy. And the people who started Greening Maindee also were responding to a real need that they’d identified there. And I wanted to know what was additionally important in getting these projects off the ground. Is it just about having those people that are really passionate or is there something else to it as well? 

Kat: A lot of them start with a passionate person, but not all of them start with a plan. Like Tayshan spoke to this really beautifully. It often is just one person doing one small thing and then bringing people in. So much of it is about what other people can bring to the table. So you don’t have to be a nature expert to be getting into this space. You don’t have to be someone that is amazing at admin and you can do all of the spreadsheets and you can speak on the radio because everybody has their own skillset that they can bring to this. And it could just be as much as you make a banging cup of tea and that’s what brings people together. And we see that like community groups across the UK are living and dying by the cup of tea. Like it is what has brought us together for generations and it continues to do so. And I think passion is one thing. A lot of it is grit. There are so many things getting in the way of people trying to do these projects. And that’s why, again, part of Nature Neighbourhoods is actually trying to establish positive relationships between community organisations and their local authority. Recognising that that relationship is really quite dependent on each other because those community organisations are meeting a service need that the local authority will either be finding quite an expensive thing to address or may well be responsible for in some form. And by building those relationships better and enabling better communication between those organisations, you can start to see real systemic change at a local level, which we hope will ladder up nationally as well. 

Izzy: Kathy from Greening Maindee spoke about this as well. She tells us about how they scaled up their work by building trust with their local authority and the community. 

Kathy:  I think it started off as a bunch of very passionate people who believed as a driving force to make it a better place to live. But as the years went by, people noticed the really nice spaces and how we were making good relationships with partners and local authority people. Larger organisations, including the council, have begun to trust what we do and the methods that we do it. People have donated areas of land, they’ve donated plants, they support our needs in fundraising and it’s led to more and more green spaces through that. 

So, for instance, we’ve just had a plot of land donated to us from a housing association because they didn’t realise they had it. We asked if they owned it, they found that it was theirs. And then they said, oh, “would you mind starting to work on it for the community?” We said, yes, they gave us some money to help us with that. Then we asked the local authority and they said, “oh, we’ve got some funding that we would also like to develop something for nature at the front of it. So we’ll do half of it. You do half of it”. And all those sort of things develop. And the way that we work, I think, and particularly the way the volunteers work, is we’ve got a load of trustees who are also councillors right from the whole range of community backgrounds. And all of that, all those relationships help to push us forward. And then we start getting recognised by larger organisations such as the Nature Neighbourhoods organisations and National Trust, RSPB. We’ve also been recognised by the RHS and we’re going to be doing an RHS garden this year as well. So it’s sort of snowballs, you know, it gathers momentum. And because we’re trusted by the community and by larger organisations, I think it seems to work. 

Izzy: Yeah, it’s really interesting hearing Kathy talking about building that trust and kind of recognition in the local community and by the larger organisations as well.  

Tayshan’s work with Grow to Know has also been recognised by the RHS, and in fact they were asked to create a garden for the Royal Chelsea Flower Show. Here he is telling the story. 

Tayshan: This community that I live in is one of the most deprived communities in the country. Yet we’re in the most affluent borough. So the disparity and inequalities is stark. It’s the biggest in the country. You’ve got the most rich living alongside the most poor. And with Grenfell being the kind of epitome of that. That stark kind of difference in reality, I think, speaks to the interjection of RHS Chelsea Flower Show, because whether they like it or not, they have been in our community for over 100 years, yet have never thought about building that connection or building that bridge. So for me, it was very natural to start a conversation which saw the redistribution of resources into a place that has a lot of resource, a lot of money, a lot of wealth, a lot of affluency, a lot of access, into a place that doesn’t have that. So for me, it was like an open goal. It’s like, how could you not engage? And so, yeah, we did the “Hands off Mangrove” garden, which told a very local story of injustice, whilst also pivoting around biodiversity, nature and taking a very environmental global story of the deforestation of mangroves and kind of like overlapping with a local story of like the injustices and the brutality of the Mangrove Nine. Also the success of the Mangrove Nine. So like bringing a social environmental and so therefore you can’t really avoid the conversation because it’s going to relate to you somehow, some way. 

As part of like the corporate hospitality evening, we were given the option to buy 120 tickets for corporates. And I struck a deal with RHS under the guise that we were going to get like really like loads of corporate people in. We just gave 120 tickets, exclusive tickets to the community, which is quite funny. It’s quite a funny sight, seeing like all these like suited and booted people with canapés and gardens surrounding, you know, everyone hosting them and trying to like lobby them. And then we just got like people from the area in the mix, you know, and I think for me, that was that was a statement of intent. And then the following year we did “Closing the Green Gap”, which kind of spoke to the disparity of access to green space head on through this kind of like cheeky block of concrete with wildflowers growing through it. Everyone around us thought we were mad because we just everyone else was like polishing leaves and like, you know, being very intricate and very delicate. Meanwhile, we just got like a whole load of rubble, and like threw it in our space. And then on a final day with a forklift came in with this block of concrete. And I just remember seeing everyone’s face as we did that, as we entered the flower show, this block of concrete, no one really understood. Like they thought we was mad. But yeah, it really did land with with people because it was the art that brought people into the conversation and querying and questioning. I think the way that we want to do things is quite unassuming and quite subtle, but brings everyone in. And I think art has a big part to play in that. 

Izzy: It’s very interesting to know that it takes those kinds of rebellious actions to really allow people to share their knowledge and their lived experience and their love and passion for their area. It takes, you know, somebody deciding to sneak people in to a big event, which is like world famous rather than them being asked to come and join in as they should. 

Kat: It doesn’t really matter whether it’s something as enormous as tackling an institution that’s over 100 years old and is genuinely world famous or just saying this patch is right outside of my house and I want to use it. And so I will. And that that is just a snowball effect. And the more people that step into their power that way and if nature can be a route in, then that’s going to be incredible. And that can genuinely transform the future. 

Izzy: I think it’s really interesting to think of what those members of the community that are benefiting from these projects would think about this and that discussion as well. I suspect that a lot of people wouldn’t even think about the fact that it’s anything to do with the climate crisis or the biodiversity crisis. They are just benefiting or participating in a project which allows them to spend more time outside, allows them to spend more time in the natural world. Taysahn talked really beautifully about a particular project that they’d done with a primary school. Let’s just listen to what he had to say about that. 

Tayshan: So we were approached by Penguin in 2022 to celebrate Peter Rabbit’s 120th birthday. Some of the successes of that partnership are only just being realised now, but we were able to take the resource that they had to promote Peter Rabbit and celebrate his 120th birthday. So it was a commercial partnership and we built a garden in the primary school, Peter Rabbit Garden, which is like an asset for a lifetime, right. So of this very short-term moment, we created a long-term kind of piece. So this school had this unused bit of land and what was sitting inside that land was a private pottery studio. They were leasing that space from the school. So it was benefiting the school in some way, but the children in the school were benefiting from this building being there. We built this garden, which was full of a diverse range of trees. There was a pond in there, there was a kitchen garden, there was an outdoor learning space that was all-weather, there was Mr. McGregor’s shed. Like there was all kinds of different references to the Peter Rabbit book. So through the Peter Rabbit story, the young children were able to resonate and connect themselves and felt a place of belonging within that narrative, within that story. But also within their school grounds, there was this beautiful garden they had access to every single day. A few years later now, that lease had ended, the private pottery studio. And as a result of making that garden accessible and beautiful, there’s now a subsidised nursery, children nursery, instead of that private pottery studio. It just goes to show how these things can create those ripple effects in ways that you could never imagine. Now they have that sense of agency and access to space at school. And then you can start building upon things like that. And so it’s like, how do we really create access and more access points? 

Kat: That’s really interesting. WWF last year released our Schools for Nature report, and it showed that less than a quarter of schools are providing daily opportunities for students to access nature and to feel the mental health benefits of that. And that the gap, as is how we’ve been talking, is most profound between the students that are from higher incomes and those students that run free school meals. So if you’ve got a school with a high proportion of students on free school meals, you are least likely to be able to be accessing nature daily. And there is so much evidence that shows that nature is foundational to young people’s mental health and their ability to learn and their ability to concentrate. And if we are only enabling the richest in our society to get access to that, what future are we really setting ourselves up for? So that Tayshan has been able to do that and to be able to create an asset that is going to last the lifetime of that school is really incredible. 

Izzy: Grow to Know has developed, as Tayshan says, really organically (pun very much intended) and I think there is stuff happening now as a result of this organisation that he himself never planned or predicted. It’s really big local action. I asked him what his goal is and what he would like to see for the future of the community. 

Tayshan: I think for me, it’s like giving people capacity, which comes in all different forms. But like if you don’t have capacity, which is like if you don’t have the time, the energy, the skills, the resource, then you actually have no way of actually of getting involved. And when I say capacity, like trusting people with resource rather than telling people how to do things and imposing things on them. I think the pandemic, especially when it comes to funders and the funding world, it is very short-term project based tick boxy. And what the pandemic taught us that people could be trusted with resource because the pandemic made it so that funders and charities and bodies that support certain communities had to be flexible because there was a lot of need very quickly.  

There were funding streams that were like, “Oh, here’s some resource. Do what you need to do with it.” And there was that sense of trust. And it’s almost like we’ve regressed from that now, you know, back to normal, you know, and the power dynamic shifts when when you create that capacity, whether it’s through money, whether it’s through creating time, whether it’s meeting people where they’re at with tools and skills. You know, I think for me, that’s what I really want to do. How do we reach the family on a 10th floor of Trellick Tower, who when a mum is a single mum or single dad, got two kids, they’ve got no time for anything else but to just survive? Like, how do we layer in some of these ideas so that it supports their well-being and their life? Because it can, like nature, community, all of these things support society, support community and give us a sense of connection. But they’re not being threaded in. Doesn’t make sense. So it’s an uphill battle. 

Izzy: Well, these two examples are obviously incredibly inspiring. And it’s lovely that we’ve managed to speak to people based in central London and also in Wales. And what we know is that there are people doing this amazing work everywhere all over the UK. We could have chosen dozens of examples to include on the podcast, but we just didn’t have time. So we’re going to finish the episode by thinking about what we’ve learned and also by encouraging you again to go look at the show notes, find out more about the people that we’ve been speaking to and other organisations as well that we will link to who are doing brilliant stuff in their communities. So Kat, what have you learned from today’s episode? 

Kat: I think the biggest takeaway for me is that you can start something that can be transformational and it can be as small as putting some plants from a local garden centre into a space and it can grow from there. And then also to Kathy’s point, that maintaining that is based entirely on trust and building trust across multiple different levels and not just the community that you’re working with, but the local authority that you’re trying to build a relationship with or the institutions that are supporting you. And to build that trust, you need to be consistent and carrying out sticking to your promises, making sure that you’re putting the needs of the people that you have started this from right front and centre. 

Izzy: So I’ve learned that creating space for nature is maybe less about specific skills and more about bringing together people who really care about their local area and the local community. Kat, it’s been wonderful to have you presenting with me again. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about before we go? 

Kat: Yes, absolutely. So we’ve been talking a lot about creating space for nature in the frame of how it can benefit your mental health. And we’ve got loads of resources on our Prescription for Nature campaign hub online. If you just Google “WWF Prescription for Nature”, it’ll come up and you can find there lots of activities that you can take regardless of how much time you’ve got. So you could be looking for resources to spend time with your family. It could be within your community. It could be at work or it could be at home. So if you head that way, you can find lots of different things that you can do and how nature can help benefit you and your wellbeing. 

Izzy: Wonderful. And there will be links to all of that in the show notes, of course. You’ve been listening to Do Something Bigger from the Carbon Copy Podcast. Today’s episode was written and presented by me, Isabelle Sparrow, and co-hosted by Kathryn Machin, Head of Community Engagement Campaigns at WWF UK. Our producer and editor is Bradley Ingham. Thanks so much to our guests, Tayshan Hayden-Smith and Kathy Barclay. If you like this episode, I recommend going back to listen to episodes in our previous series, All Nature, available from the Carbon Copy website or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Goodbye.