A small piece of plumbing, a lasting difference to a community garden.
When a thriving community garden in Wythenshawe ran into a practical barrier — no water supply — RPS Group installed an outside tap, removing hours of manual effort and making the space genuinely usable for the older volunteers who tend it. The work was a direct, voluntary contribution to the community served by Wythenshawe Community Housing Group (WCHG), alongside our heating programme delivery in the same area.
The community we supported
Benchill Community Centre is a facility supported by WCHG and a genuine hub for the local community. It runs everything from art and craft sessions, IT and dance classes to essential support services: a sensory room for young children, English and Maths courses, employment help, and free SIM cards with six months of data for people looking for work.
Every Friday, its Laugh & Lunch afternoon offers visitors a free hot meal and drinks in a warm, welcoming environment.
The Challenge
Visitors had long told the centre they wanted to spend time outdoors during their visits, but the existing garden had been deemed unsafe and unusable. Earlier this year the centre launched a garden project to put that right, transforming the space with seating areas, raised flower beds, an outdoor shelter, a greenhouse and a compost bin. A dedicated volunteer group, the Benchill Bloomers, now meets every Thursday to keep it growing.
One obstacle remained. With no water access in the garden, volunteers were carrying watering cans back and forth by hand — time-consuming work, and exhausting on warmer days, particularly for a group made up largely of older people. The centre’s limited funding could not stretch to the cost of an outside tap and its installation.
How RPS helped
We approached Benchill Community Centre to ask how we could support its work, and Vicky at the centre identified the outside tap as the priority. We were pleased to be able to help, and our installer Anthony completed the work in full. He fitted the new tap, added pipe insulation to protect the supply, and took the time to walk Vicky through how to keep the system running reliably across
The difference it makes
The new tap removes hours of manual labour from every gardening session. Instead of hauling watering cans, the Benchill Bloomers can now water the garden quickly and easily — freeing their time and energy for the work they enjoy: planting, growing and developing the space further. The outcome is a more accessible garden for the centre’s older volunteers, a more sustainable community asset, and an outdoor space the whole community can use and enjoy.
I’d like to say a massive thank you to the Rothwell Group for your kind support installing an outside tap in our garden. This will be a great help to the gardening project — we can now make sure our plants are watered every day with ease. Feel free to come back and see how the garden has grown.
We were so excited to see the new outside tap in the garden. As most of us are older people, this will make it so much easier to water the plants, rather than having to carry watering cans back and forth. Thank you so very much.
Why it matters to us
Delivering social value is not something we treat as a tick-box exercise to sit alongside our contracts — it is part of how we work in the communities we serve. This is a small project by scale, but a meaningful one: it makes a valued community space more usable, supports the wellbeing and inclusion of older residents, and helps a sustainable, volunteer-led garden flourish.
We are proud to have supported our client WCHG, and the Wythenshawe commumity in this way, and we look forward to seeing how the garden grows!
