The idea of making a community garden in the heart of Baildon, on the site of a derelict former school playground, is an excellent one. Ideally every village should have such a facility, created and cared for by members of the community, where local people can go to relax and enjoy the surroundings they have helped to produce.

The problem is that, along with so many other things, such projects cost rather a lot of money. In the case of the proposed Hall Cliffe Community Garden the creation work alone (removing the hard surface of the playground and doing the preliminary landscaping) will account for £20,000 of the estimated £66,000 costs.

The volunteers behind the project thought themselves fortunate to have secured a 90 per cent grant towards the total cost from the Countryside Agency. However, it now appears that their joy could be short-lived. They believed that they would have three years in which to raise the £6,600 which was to be their contribution to the cost but have now discovered that it must be raised by the end of August, before work begins.

That is quite a task. It is unfortunate that appeals to various corporate fund providers have failed because of the many other applications they face. Now it looks as if it is up to the people of Baildon themselves to raise the money within the village.

All it would need is 660 people to contribute £10 each, or even 1,320 to stump up a mere £5. In a fast-growing village like Baildon that surely should not be an impossible challenge.