Good Soil Project to be run by farmer (From Worcester News)

Good Soil Project to be run by farmer

12:40pm Thursday 4th March 2010 in

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A GARDENING project set up to help persistent offenders will carry on – thanks to a Worcestershire farmer.

West Mercia Probation Care Trust has handed over responsibility for the Good Soil Project to David Harper, the owner of Top Barn Farm, just outside Worcester.

Mr Harper agreed to take over the project, where offenders look after animals and grow vegetables, after hearing that it was at risk of closure.

He said: “Probation were struggling to find money and at the end they said they would have to set a deadline and that they would definitely finish at the end of the year.

“I asked, ‘Well rather than it close, could we be considered to take it on?’.

“Probation didn’t feel it was their job to be running the scheme but rather that it needed to be run by private enterprise. It’s for people who benefit by being involved in a rural enterprise. It’s brilliant to see them responding.”

The land-based project evolved from a scheme set up by celebrity gardener Monty Don who believed persistent offenders could grow themselves out of trouble.

He originally teamed up with the trust to set up the project on a Herefordshire farm catering mainly for drug addicts.

It became the Good Soil project in 2007, moving to Top Barn Farm, in Holt Heath.

However, David Chantler, the probation service’s chief executive, said: “The issue isn’t about the amount of money at all. Advantage West Midlands was so interested in what we were doing they made a grant of £420,000 to establish West Midlands Care Farm Network with a view to developing 20 care farms across West Mercia.”

According to Mr Chantler, Care Farming West Midlands (CFWM) will now take the idea of gardening as therapy a step further, making the service available to a range of community users rather than just offenders.

He said the probation service had plans in the pipeline for another gardening project aimed at helping offenders in Worcester.

The changes will also see the end of the involvement of one of the project’s key figures – former police officer Rocky Hudson.