HOW GUERRILLA GARDENERS ARE CLAIMING BACK PUBLIC SPACE
Almost every neighbourhood has one: a neglected patch of land, covered in weeds and strewn with litter, long ago abandoned by whoever was once responsible for it.
Though a blot on the landscape in most people’s view, to Ellen Miles’s eyes, these unloved spaces look more like an opportunity.
“It’s like window shopping – I walk past these bare patches of land now and am constantly thinking about how I could transform them,” she says. “It can be quite depressing seeing how many there are, but it’s also exciting.”
Miles, who lives in Hackney, East London and is running a campaign to get nature access recognised as a human right, was first drawn to abandoned spaces at the start of 2020 when local authorities began shutting public parks during lockdown.
Frustrated at
