St. Columba's Woodland, Community Garden and Wildflower Meadow

Church Road, Broughton Moor

This area was gifted to the Parish Council to hold in trust for the village, by British Coal, when coal extraction work ended in the early 1990s.

Under-used for decades, the Parish Council installed picnic tables and benches, for public use and installed gates to prevent unauthorised vehicular access to the site.

Despite this, people chose to exercise their dogs on the area and failed to pick up after them, meaning that the area became so full of dog faeces that it was unusable as a family amenity. In addition a resident of Broughton Moor exercised their horse on the land, making it dangerous to walk as the heavy animal's hooves churned up the grass creating multiple trip risks.

The Parish Council remains determined that this area should be a community amenity and a space to be enjoyed by the people of Broughton Moor. We have consulted widely with the community via the village survey, vision day and two further events held in September 2026 in the Community Centre.

We are delighted to announce that we now have all of the funds available to transform this space from wasteland to a vibrant community garden, woodland and wildflower meadow which will provide opportunities for people to enjoy being outdoors in a safe community space on their doorstep, and will promote greater bio diversity in the area.

We are grateful to the Woodland Trust who donated 200 trees and shrubs, and to the staff and pupils of Broughton Moor Primary School who planted them in January 2026.

Thank you to Cumberland Council's Lakes to Sea Community Fund and the Broughton Moor Windfarm Fund, who have given generous grants to enable the work to commence.

The Parish Council is delighted to announce that, thanks to these grants and the utilisation of some reclaimed VAT, the entire project can go ahead without costing the village a single penny.

Work to make the project a reality will begin very shortly and we hope people will respect the area and enjoy it for many years to come.

Last but by no means least, we wish to thank Parish Councillor Stuart Henderson for bringing the project together,

If you would like to help with this project, we would love to hear from you. Volunteers are most welcome. Please use the contact us option to let us know you are interested in helping with this project

For before and after pictures see below.