Tebay Services to create therapy garden to boost mental health

The charity wants to help 100 people a year to boost their mental health through therapeutic gardening

A therapeutic garden is to be created next to a service station on the M6 to help those with mental health problems.

Kendal-based charity Growing Well has received £330,000 to supply Tebay Services with vegetables grown with the help of volunteers.

The charity said gardening benefitted people struggling with their mental health by teaching them news skills.

It aims to help 100 people a year in Eden and north Cumbria who will volunteer to garden one day a week.

Westmorland Family, which runs three service stations including Tebay, has donated £150,000 to the scheme and the National Lottery Community Fund is giving £180,000 over two years.

Growing Well already runs a similar project at Low Sizergh farm near Kendal.

Volunteers will work under the supervision of growers and mental health support staff.

They can be referred by GPs or themselves and will be offered a chance to rebuild confidence and learn new skills in a bid to return to employment or education, the charity said.

The project will supply salads and leafy vegetables to the farm shop and kitchen just a few hundred metres from the garden.

'Rural isolation'

Growing Well's chief executive, Mary Smith, said: "This service will not only be for the people of rural Eden and Penrith, but for those up the M6 as far as Carlisle.

"There are big gaps in mental health services, an ever-growing need post-Covid, and rural isolation is a particular problem."

The project will also create four full-time jobs and will open to volunteers in January.

Westmorland Family is providing the garden site rent-free.

Chair of the company Sarah Dunning said: "We are a business that has locally sourced food at its heart, so we are excited about being able to source freshly harvested, pesticide-free salads and vegetables on our own doorstep."

The organic garden will be created just a few hundred yards from Tebay Services' farm shop and kitchen