Northern Roots Urban Farm and Eco-Park

“Beautiful Oldham – why not?” That’s what conservationist Mary Higgs wrote to the Oldham Chronicle in 1901. And by jove, it looks like we’ve got it. Northern Roots is now open to the public, and brings a new sense of life and, yes, beauty to this oft-maligned former mill town.

It was no small undertaking. When Brook Mills was demolished, the rubble was tipped into the valley here, which served as the local dump until the early 80s. The woodland you walk through today is largely self-seeded. Five years and £14m of council money later, the site is set to become the UK’s largest urban farm and eco-park, spread across 160 acres.

The buildings are by Willmott Dixon, a family firm with an Oldham base, whose first job in 1852 was £1 to build a well. Poundland eat your heart out.

Ian Brown once said Manchester had everything except a beach. Stand down, Ian, Oldham has sorted you out. The new play area has a sand beach, which chief executive Anna da Silva was weeding by hand the day before my visit. Elsewhere, the world’s most cheerful blacksmith forges arrowheads from car springs he finds by the roadside, and the UK’s youngest master beekeeper tends her hives.

The café menu comes via Mary-Ellen McTague, and nigh-on everything on the menu was grown on site. Self-sufficiency in excelsis. It seems we’ve had a bit of a courgette boom, as it’s present in a bunch of our preview dishes: brilliantly soft honey and courgette cakes, plus falafel-style fritters, to name but two.

A yellow split pea stew uses kohlrabi stalks and less-popular leaves, saving them from the bin, finished with an oil of fresh coriander seed that smells, delightfully and oddly, of orange. Filter coffee and builder’s tea are £1.50. Think of it as a Spinningfields, made for the people, by the people.

The long-term goal is to serve as a blueprint for other UK regions. Da Silva hopes other towns will “take a lesson” from Oldham, and I’m all for it. There’s a lot going for Northern Roots. It looks great, brings unique employment opportunities for locals youngsters and there’s a real sense of drive and passion from all parties involved.