Hayley Discusses the process of setting up Richmond Community Garden in the Red Zone

Hayley Guglietta is honest about her group’s activities on vacant land bordering Christchurch’s Avon River. She admits the groundwork was commenced without official permission. “We took over half an acre of land up here”, Guglietta tells *Frank Film*. “We had a small garden at Avebury (House), we got too big for it and we wanted to expand. Downers were on the land and we thought rather than wait for them to get off we’ll just start working around them.” The Richmond Community Garden now supplies produce to local residents, grown on land where homes and individual vegetable gardens once stood, on what is now known as the Otakaro Avon River Corridor. A vast 602 hectares, cleared of around 5000 homes after a devastating sequence of earthquakes, commencing almost a decade ago.