Graves Park glass houses approved for food growing restoration

Sheffield City Council has approved the commissioning of a new operator to oversee the restoration and use of the glass houses at Norton Nurseries, Graves Park, as a food growing facility.

A licence of up to 5 years for the chosen operator to maintain and improve the space was granted by the council at a Charity Trustee Sub-Committee meeting on Monday 4th March.

Jo Pearce, Service Manager for Business and Partnerships, Parks & Countryside, presented the innovative report to the committee. 

She said: “The glass houses are wonderful, but they’re sat there doing very little.”

The proposed partnership aims to utilise the pre-existing space by developing low-carbon food infrastructure within Sheffield and supporting a social and educational enterprise for the local community as part of the food growing project.

The glass houses were originally opened in 1983, and were said to be ‘the most modern glass houses in Europe’, according to Councillor Ian Auckland. 

However, while structurally sound, the facility has since fallen into disrepair, with the report describing ‘missing glass panes, gutters clogged with moss, [and] growing beds falling apart’ and Graves Park Charity currently unable to fund a full-scale refurbishment themselves.

Ms Pearce hopes to see a new operator selected ‘within the next year, leading nicely into the next growing season’.

The project forms the latest move by the council in working to meet outcomes set out within the Sheffield Food Strategy, approved for implementation in July 2023 to create a ‘Fairer, Healthier, Greener’ food economy within Sheffield.

Selina Treuherz, Partnership Coordinator at ShefFood – a cross-sector partnership working in association with the council on the Sheffield Food Strategy to create a more sustainable food system for Sheffield – said: “There are very few examples nationally of a local authority finding spaces for community food growing and working alongside them, and so it’s great that Sheffield is taking the lead in this way.”

Volunteer charity Friends of Graves Park have also voiced their support for the glass houses being brought back into use, having previously restored part of the old Norton Nurseries site, Chantreyland Meadow, into a protected wildlife area.