| LICENSEE HOPES TO SET UP GARDENING CLUB IN PUB GROUNDS
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A pub in Redhill is setting up a gardening club for green-fingered customers to grow their own flowers and vegetables.
Lee and Nyssa Hales, licensees of the Elm Shades, Pendleton Road, in the heart of the St John's conservation area, have a 15 metre square area at the bottom of the pub garden that they hope their regulars will transform.
Nyssa said: "I am asking my customers if they would like to form a gardening club to clear the bushes and bracken and to make good use of it. A lot of people around here live in flats and don't have gardens or allotments and it would give them a chance to grow some plants and vegetables."
The attractive garden already has a patio, a smoking area, a petanque pitch and a children's play area. Nyssa, inspired by current trends such as Landshare, believes a gardening club section, grown and tended by customers, could make the Elm Shades unique.
Lee and his wife Nyssa took over the Shepherd Neame pub in January 2009. They have carried out a complete redecoration and introduced a delicious menu of home-cooked food to the 60-cover restaurant. This spring, in partnership with the brewery, they plan to install a log fire and a wooden floor.
Nyssa comes from a family of licensees and five of her relatives run pubs but Lee is new to the trade, having previously worked in the security industry.
