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Two old glasshouses have been saved from landfill and repurposed as a new facility at GROW in what is thought to be Guernsey's largest recycling project.
As part of the occupational workshop site's redevelopment a large glass structure has appeared, which is visible from the road at Les Coutanchez.
It won't be open to the public until later this year but the Project Manager said the work is scheduled for completion at the end of July at which time the staff and crew will move back to the main GROW site so they can settle in to their new facilities.
Pictured: The glasshouse will be used by the GROW crew for various aspects of their work.
For the past 18 months the GROW staff and crew have been working out of a temporary site at Avondale Vinery, near Oatlands.
While there, a redundant glasshouse at Avondale and another at Les Canus were identified as possible assets for GROW. Both were Venlo structures - recognised as a high quality product.
The former owners agreed to donate their redundant glasshouses and also covered the cost of dismantling and storing the materials until GROW was able to bring contractors over to the island to create its new purpose-built facility.
The work started last November, with contractors, Hortiglaze from Hull and Cambridge HOK, returning to the island in March to rebuild the structures on GROW’s own site at Les Coutanchez.
From two glasshouses, one large structure measuring 51 x 36m (1800sq. m.) has been created with a veranda, a wide path through the middle, walkways throughout the site, doors and ceiling vents.
When it's been cleaned by Aqua Window Cleaning, and the side has been painted, GROW is expecting it to last for around another 30 years.
Pictured: (l-r) Marguerite Talmage, Tracey Hutchins, Stuart Smale, and Angus Bodman.
Redevelopment Director Angus Bodman said GROW's ethos of being practical and cost effective came to the fore when planning the mammoth recycling project.
"We had to make optimal use of every square metre that we had here, and we started from that premise. The second leading thought was that we had to be as practical as we could about everything that we did.
"GROW, for the last ten or fifteen years has always used cold-houses, we can't afford to heat our glasshouses, so our requirement was not for the highest tech structure, we needed the most practical and cost effective structure.
"Thanks to the kindness and generosity of the people who owned the glasshouses but wanted to clear their sites for development, they helped us in the cost of dismantling and removing the houses and we were then able, because of the structural integrity of the houses, and the quality of the houses when they had originally been built, to create this new single glasshouse with recycled material and saved dumping it all, and saved us money."
Horticultural Manager Stuart Smale was among those who weren't sure a suitable facility for GROW could be created out of recycled material.
"I was very sceptical," he admits. "Angus and I had many a discussion about the viability of moving the greenhouse down here. Being the Horticultural Manager at GROW I wanted a brand new facility, I didn't have the vision of what could be established down here.
"Hats off to Angus. He's really delivered on the greenhouse. It's far better than what I envisaged it being.
Pictured top: (inset l-r) Marguerite Talmage, Stuart Smale, Angus Bodman, Tracey Hutchins.
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