A TEAM of volunteers have spent countless hours creating an outdoor meeting place in York for their local community, which is expected to open this summer.

Since spring 2016, volunteers for The Carriage Garden project at Holgate Allotments have been working towards transforming a disused area around an historic railway carriage at the allotments off Holgate Road into a community garden.

It will feature a decked area and an amphitheatre to stage events and teaching sessions, a meeting place for plot holders, friends and visiting groups.

In addition, project members have also made progress restoring the railway carriage on the site.

They hope to open the garden in July as part of the Bloom! horticultural festival.

Simon Hall, one of the small group of Holgate Allotments Association volunteers working on the project, said: “It will be a place where allotment holders can get together and share ideas, or a place where people can have a cup of tea and a chat.

“The group are thrilled to reach this point and want to thank everyone who has helped along the way.

“We can’t wait to officially launch the garden this summer and have lots of fun ideas and plans for the coming years.

"Its very fitting that this garden will be part of Bloom! festival and hope it will inspire people to ‘grow your own’.”

He added that volunteers have managed to raise about £9,000 in funding for the project, which includes money from fundraising events they have held and contributions from City of York Council, local ward funding and the York Community Recycling Fund.

He said they are about half way with the restoration of the railway carriage, but he said he is confident work on the garden surrounding the carriage will be complete by July.

Speaking about the carriage, he said: “The carriage is not going to be restored by the summer.

"It might take a couple of years and is a project in its own right inspired by York’s railway heritage.

“At the moment it is water tight and an empty shell, which we aim to use for activities such as sharing seeds.”

Project members hope the site will become a focal point in west York.

They have a Twitter account @CarriageGarden, giving details of their activities.