Volunteers at the Culpeper Community Garden

A FOUR-decades-old community garden in Angel – beloved by Paul “Mad Dog” McGuinness of The Popes fame – has lost its council funding.

Mr McGuinness is one of 170 volunteers who visit Culpeper Community Garden in Cloudesley Road each week as part of its outreach work with the community.

The garden was set up in 1983 after locals got fed up with children playing among the rubble of the Second World War and decided to create a community “oasis”.

Mr McGuinness said: “I played in music and toured all around the world with bands and then I had a brain injury. So my life seemed to change completely. And then I found this place and I started to get back on track. It was very nice. It just sort of normalised things and made me feel good about myself.”

In 2013 he was run over by a car in Stoke Newington and was put into a coma for seven weeks. During his recovery, he had to “learn to do everything again, talk, walk, even going to the toilet – everything”.

He is now the frontman of Aisling, but says the garden “means everything to me – it makes me feel normal”.

Culpeper’s Garden manager Mandy Graham said she felt “hurt” after Islington rejected their bid for further funding, after they went above and beyond to support their members during Covid. “It just seems such a shame,” she said.

Islington has defended its decision.

A spokesperson said: “We received a very high number of strong applications for our voluntary and community sector Partnership Grants Programme 2024-28 . The value of the applications greatly exceeded the money available and we had to make some hard decisions.

“We’ve offered to help support Culpeper Community Garden to seek other funding, and Culpeper also recently made a successful application for project funding through our Local Initiatives Fund.”