North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has sponsored and spoken at today’s launch of the Horticultural Trades Association’s (HTA) ‘Welsh Environmental Horticulture Manifesto’ in the Senedd.
The HTA represents 85 member businesses across Wales and nearly 1,400 horticulture organisations across the entire supply chain of the UK's environmental horticulture and gardening industry.
Speaking at the launch of their Manifesto, Mr Isherwood stated that environmental horticulture is sometimes underestimated, adding “but this Manifesto makes absolutely clear that it should not be".
He said:
“This is a sector that underpins our communities, our economy, our health and our environment.
“Environmental horticulture supports tens of thousands of jobs in Wales and contributes billions to our economy, with clear potential for further growth over the coming decade.
“Their members include family‑run garden centres, growers, landscapers and nurseries – many of them small and medium‑sized enterprises – that are part of our local communities.
“These are not abstract businesses. They are community hubs. Nearly seventy per cent of adults in Wales visited a garden centre in the last year.
“These are places where people meet, learn, volunteer, and reconnect – with each other and with nature.
“This matters, because access to gardens and green spaces is not a luxury, it is fundamental to wellbeing.”
Mr Isherwood visited Daleside Garden Centre, Hawarden, last summer with the HTA, when issues discussed included HTA’s 'Environmental Horticulture Growth Strategy - a vision for Wales'; their call for a long-term UK water resilience Strategy; how skills are a key challenge for the sector and the skills system needs to deliver for the current and future skills requirements of the environmental horticulture sector; and peat-free growing.
At today’s launch, he added:
“The HTA manifesto is clear, the vast majority of people in Wales recognise the physical and mental health benefits of green spaces.
“At a time when pressure on health services continues to grow, horticulture and gardening offer preventative, low‑cost, high‑impact solutions that deserve far greater recognition in public policy.
“The Manifesto also calls for a holistic horticulture strategy for Wales – one that brings together health, planning, education, the environment and the economy, because gardens and green infrastructure cut across almost every portfolio represented in this building.
“Horticulture builds confidence, creativity and environmental awareness. It offers practical pathways into employment and lifelong skills, and the Manifesto calls on the next Welsh Government to ensure that each child has the opportunity to grow a plant and benefit from these experiences.”
Concluding, he said:
“Today is not simply about launching a document, it is about a partnership – between policymakers, businesses, educators and communities – to ensure that this sector gets the recognition, support and strategic focus it deserves.”
