Balfour Beatty Support East Lothian Garden
The Heugh Community Garden is situated in the old gasworks which used to serve the residents of Tranent. Natural Connections based at the garden, project aimed to develop the old gasworks site which had lain unused since 1978, into a Community Growing Garden resource.
When the space was taken over, it was overgrown and required a huge amount of effort to get it to the stage it is now, which includes fruit trees, potting sheds and a kitchen, fire pit, paths, flourishing plants and raised planters.
Lorraine Johnston who runs the garden, had contacted our team through Carla Allan at Volunteer Centre East Lothian (VCEL) as she was looking for new pallets;
"The pallets were to replace our old original raised beds that were made from recycled pallets almost ten years ago. They have served us well but are now disintegrating and this offer came along at just the right time.
In all, we received 78 pallets and they will keep us pretty busy for the next few months."
There are around 30 volunteers who are regularly involved with the garden actvities learning how to grow fruit and veg along the way. The garden provides a beautiful setting and acts as great space for people to connect and learn new skills.
It's fantastic to hear how well the original pallets served the Heugh Community Garden for nearly a decade! Delighted to know that the replacement pallets arrived just as they were needed and will be put to such good use by the volunteers and staff at the garden.
Balfour Beatty have several projects in East Lothian and worked with their supply chain to secure the required pallets which they were delighted would be given a second lease of life.
Lorraine and her helpers are planning to make use if the pallets but repurposing the timber into planters similar to the fantastic example made below.
We were delighted to be offered a large number of timber pallets which will enable us to construct new raised beds for our community garden. We are so grateful to Balfour Beatty for their generous donation, also to the staff who organised the delivery and the lorry driver who negotiated our very difficult access road.