Fresh Fields Enterprises Ltd was founded in 1991 by a group of parents, one of whom was a Burnley Councillor, who had children with Learning Disabilities who were about to leave school and become adults with Learning Disabilities. At that time Day Services appeared to be the only available progression for them, but these parents wanted similar opportunities for their children that were available to other young people about to leave education, work skills experience and learning. And why shouldn’t they have them?
They say necessity is the mother of invention and so together they helped form and register Fresh Fields as a Charity to achieve those aims for adults with support needs to have access to training and employment experiences, within a Horticulture setting.
With Burnley Council’s help they managed to borrow a bit of space at Rosegrove nurseries site on Cemetery Lane, growing plants that they sold on market stalls and helping with the growing and planting work. In 2002 when the council vacated the site the Management Board managed to apply for 3 years of European development funding to help establish them further by renovating the empty Lodge building. They negotiated taking on the Lease of the site and began employing a staff team.
Since then we have gone from strength to strength. Our Service User Numbers have increased as has our staff team, our garden service is busy and we have a whole range of activities apart from gardening, including arts and crafts, music and dance, learning to cook, riding bicycles and woodwork.