Community garden set on fire in arson attack

The fire damaged a children's tree house, sheds and other areas of the garden

A community garden was set on fire in a suspected arson attack, police have confirmed.

The fire, which happened at around 17:00 BST on Thursday, damaged a children's tree house, sheds and other areas of the garden outside Kempshott Village Hall in Basingstoke.

The fire service and Hampshire police attended the scene. No arrests have been made.

The space is run by educational charity Inspero, which promotes healthy eating and living through food growing, baking and cooking programmes.

Inspero's founder said the fire was "distressing and shocking"

Catherine Waters-Clark, who founded the charity, said the incident had been a "huge shock" but "thankfully nobody was hurt".

She said: "I'm just so upset and distressed for the charity.

"We have people from all walks of life that come down here to socialise, for mental health conditions, some people recovering from diseases, we also have a lot of SEN special needs students that come here to learn horticulture skills."

Mrs Waters-Clark said the community garden has been in the area for nine years and had not had any issues previously.

"This project was always built on trust and up until this year we've never had this level of violence and anti-social behaviour," she said.

Mrs Waters-Clark said that the community garden has been in the area for nine years

The charity founder said the incident was "just so distressing and shocking".

She added: "This is going to cost us thousands of pounds but we're also going to have to now invest in CCTV."

The Royal Horticultural Society and South East in Bloom were due to visit the charity this summer to judge the work that it does.