00:00We bobbed along to Shibden Park in Halifax just as day two of Stage at the Lake was getting underway.
00:06Locals and visitors have been flocking here to mark 100 years of public ownership of the park,
00:11which has a rich history, with connections to Anne Lister and King Edward VIII.
00:16We're celebrating 100 years of Shibden Park. There's a brand new event in Calderdale, Stage at the Lake.
00:22It's important for us to celebrate all our cultural assets, and I think public parks in particular,
00:27is very valuable to our communities.
00:30And putting on a four-day event and being bold in aspiration and having that planned through my team
00:35is that we really wanted to up the ante of celebrating our public spaces,
00:39seeing the excitement on people's faces and the enjoyment and relaxation that they're experiencing.
00:45Welcoming theatre, comedy, classical music, brass and youth-led performances,
00:49we met local band Grow before they took to the stage.
00:53We've been playing in Halifax ever since we really started, at all the venues,
00:57it was kind of our starting spot, and to play a stage like this today,
01:01it just shows that we've kept on going and going and going for all these years.
01:05It's exciting, man.
01:06I used to come here all the time, so it's amazing to be back doing something musical here.
01:10I used to love the boats, the footy around, it has the best park.
01:13That slide, man, when you go around that slide, I used to come here all the time as a kid.
01:18Being a band in 2026, it's very enjoyable.
01:20There's loads of different bands, loads of different genres, loads of different influences
01:24to pick up on, so it's exciting.
01:27Yeah, it's the community here as well.
01:29We've got a few bands that we've known for a while that kind of started out when we did as
01:33well,
01:33like The Incident and Dougal.
01:35So it's good to see those and play with those as well.
01:38From Grow the Band to Growing Gardens,
01:41Seeds of Hope is a community gardening festival featuring 10 pocket parks created by local groups.
01:46The paddock was founded about six years ago, just at the start of COVID,
01:50and it was myself and my friend Joan Tillotson,
01:53who found a piece of land just between two or three council estates,
01:58unused, but fenced and gated.
02:00We commandeered it and turned it into a safe space for the community.
02:03Unfortunately, Joan died in 2025.
02:08And so this garden is really as a memorial to her,
02:12because she was so key in getting the garden started and where it is today.
02:17Although you've got your volunteers around you and the community around you,
02:21you forget that there's a wider group of people that are doing exactly the same in their own community.
02:26And being able to come here and network and meet those people,
02:29and we've got a WhatsApp group and everything, has been absolutely brilliant.
02:33The lovely thing about this festival is that once everything finishes here,
02:37these gardens are going to be de-installed and then re-installed in the community.
02:42So we've got, and the whole of Calderdale is represented here.
02:45We've got a group from North Halifax, we've got our refugee community,
02:50Sorby Bridge, Central Halifax, Todmorden, Elland.
02:55We hope that we'll inspire more people to get involved in their local projects.
02:59We hope that we've got a group of people to get involved in their local projects.
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