AN overgrown area has been transformed into a beautiful garden for people to enjoy.

The Harpers Lane Community Garden in Bolton is open to anyone to sit down or talk to neighbours.

The new open space has been created by volunteers from a local litter picking group.

And now they are appealing for donations to ensure everyone can make use of the garden and open it up to people with disabilities.

Heather Berry, who works as a volunteer, said: “Originally we started doing it because we run a litter picking group and were noticing a lot of fly-tipping and brambles.

"We cleared the brambles to stop it and were going to plant wildflower seeds and the more we did it the more we wanted to completely change it.”

Bolton At Home own the community garden and backed the idea, including supplying a skip for the group to use during their work.

The site was bigger than first thought, and people donated plants to transform into a beautiful open space.

The volunteers of eight to ten people have since made flower beds, installed a bench and put some tyre plants in.

Mrs Berry said: "The site was not being used before, but we started first and then asked permission from Bolton at Home later.

"It’s a place where people can sit and enjoy talking to friends and neighbours. It’s got a real community fell to it as people who live nearby can finally meet each other after the pandemic."

The garden community even hope to have schools involved soon, with learning and exploring the garden wildlife and nature as well as making bee beds.

But, while the garden is now a pretty sight, the group need funding to make it disability friendly.

Mrs Berry said: "We want to make the path more accessible and also have things like bird boxes to make it wildlife friendly.

"I could see that we would need money to do all of these things and it’s a community driven project that everyone is getting behind."

The Mayor of Bolton, Cllr Linda Thomas visited the site to officially open it last Tuesday.
Mrs Berry said: “The mayor was very supportive of it and loved what we had done with the space.

“She had only planned to stay for half an hour but ended up staying the whole evening to talk to us.”
To donate to the funding page visit https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/heather-berry