Gloucester Park and Skate Park

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Our work around Gloucester Park began when Gloucester City Centre Community Partnership commissioned us to talk to people living in the Westgate area of Gloucester. Over six weeks we knocked on doors and listened to more than 200 residents, asking what they liked about their community, what concerned them and what they would like to change.

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Gloucester Park and the Skate Park came up again and again, so we continued the conversations with residents and people using the park. People talked about wanting the park to feel safer and more welcoming, improving the Skate Park, bringing the aviary back into use and making much more of a place that was already important to them. We supported people who shared those interests to come together, and from those conversations Friends of Gloucester Park began to develop.

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Amongst the people we met were Will and Dave. Both of these young people were passionate about the Skate Park and the need to make it better for the people who used it. They talked about creating something that would benefit young people in Gloucester for years to come and leave a legacy for those who followed them. We listened to their ideas and supported them to explore what might be possible. Will and Dave joined Friends of Gloucester Park, helping to ensure that young people using Bakers Triangle, including the Skate Park, MUGA and basketball court, had a voice in the wider conversations about the park. Will became Vice Chair and Dave joined the committee, and both took part in community organising and leadership training.

 

“They listened to my vision – they didn’t tell me what to do, they just mentored me through it.”  - Dave

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The important part of this was not simply that a new Skate Park was created, but that the people who used it had a real part in shaping it, from organising a Skate Park Jam, to influencing the designs and being at the core of the funding process. Will helped influence the tender and sat on the panel choosing the contractor, while Skate Park users were involved in checking and changing the final design before it was completed.

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Continuing the conversations

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At the same time, our wider conversations continued to uncover other ideas and other people who wanted to get involved. We met two mums who wanted to do something in the park but could not attend Friends meetings because of childcare. We listened to what interested them and supported them to explore their ideas, and within a few weeks they had organised a mud-modelling activity in the park.

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We received support to continue our work in the park from the People’s Health Trust. Alongside enabling us to continue our conversations, the funding allowed us to take on a trainee Community Organiser. Emma was chosen for the role and worked in and around the park, including using a weekly pop-up café as another way of meeting people and having conversations.

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When Emma’s circumstances changed, this created an opportunity for another local young person to take up the trainee role. The project was adapted and Keziah joined Community Roots, continuing to develop organising, communication, volunteer and event skills through being directly involved in the work.

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Through our conversations, and later through a Facebook poll, it also became clear that there was strong interest not just in reopening the café, but in creating something that reflected what people wanted from the park - more than 100 people responded to the poll, with 92% wanting the café to reopen. Penny could see the potential for the café to become a base for community organising in the park, with the longer-term hope that income from the café might one day help support a Community Organiser based there.

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As the conversations continued, we brought the different ideas together into a Community Vision for Gloucester Park, capturing what people had told us they wanted to see develop, including community growing, an orchard, nature trails, sculptures, colourful and recycled features, better play equipment, safer facilities, events, improved accessibility and the café.

From conversations to actions.

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The Community Vision

 

After Covid, support through Thriving Communities enabled us to reconnect with people and revisit that vision. Covid had interrupted much of the momentum that had built up, so reconnecting people became an important part of the work, with creativity becoming one of the ways we did that - with activities that included the tree trail and turning two of the parks large planters into community fruit and salad beds.

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Funding through Gloucestershire County Council then allowed us to explore more of the ideas that had come from the conversations. One of these was a community sculpture trail, with local people working alongside artists to create pieces reflecting Gloucester’s communities, stories and heritage.

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Unfortunately, Anna became seriously ill at the same time as costs were rising, and the practical requirements for installing the sculptures became much more complicated than we had expected. Taken together, it became too much to make the original idea work, so we went back to the Council and agreed a different way forward.

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The work developed into events and activities including Food and Fun, Forest School, creative workshops and the Winter Festival of Light, creating opportunities for people to come together, get involved and continue the conversations about their park. This wider community work also fed into Gloucester Park’s Green Flag journey.

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Opening a community cafe

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The idea for a community café continued to develop alongside this work and, in summer 2023, we finally had the opportunity to begin opening it as a community-run café.

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Helen had originally become connected to the work through Anna and Global Arts and gradually became more involved with Community Roots. She brought her catering experience into the café, supported volunteers, took on more responsibility and later became a Director.

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The café was always intended to offer more than food and drink. We wanted it to create opportunities for volunteering, learning and employment while also giving us a base in the park where we could continue listening and building relationships.

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Unfortunately, serious problems with the building meant that much of 2024 was lost to repairs and electrical work, just as the café was beginning to establish itself. We finally regained proper access in spring 2025 and in many ways had to start again.

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Our immediate aim is now to establish a sustainable café that can cover its costs and support Helen’s role. The work of the cafe has expanded, we have partnered with We are Project Grow and Nourishing Gloucester to produce Gloucester Soup and are supporting We are Project Grow's award winning enterprise Social Source. The longer-term ambition of the café helping to support a Community Organiser in the park remains, but first the café needs the opportunity to stand on its own feet.

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Looking back, Gloucester Park has never really been one project. It has been a consistent piece of community organising spanning a decade - with conversations leading to relationships, relationships opening up ideas and those ideas sometimes taking years to become reality.