On 18th July 2009, Rochdale Rotary Club and Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Environmental Management signed a pledge between Rochdale Rotary and Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, witnessed by the Mayor of Rochdale Cllr Keith Swift and District Governor Elizabeth Tatman.

The pledge states:

“On behalf of the Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council and the Rotary Club of Rochdale we make claim to be the first in the United Kingdom to trial Vertical Urban Farming using a unique grow bag system and we challenge any individual, group, village, Town or City to demonstrate a system that they consider superior.

This document underlines our desire to focus community interest on urban farming at local, national and international levels whilst enjoying like minded fellowship and the satisfaction of contributing towards green issues."

Growing trials in Bowlee Nurseries in Greater Manchester have proved successful.

The specially designed vertical containers patented (Pending) by Rotary have proved their worth. Sixty plants (beans, peas, tomatoes and courgettes), stacked three high in a space half a metre x two metres (20″ × 78″) produced easy grown compact high yield per square metre vegetables.

Rotary and Rochdale Council Horticulturalists believe the containers which are very conservative of water, with a special “slack sack” inner to allow maximum air to the root system whilst offering a visual check of reservoir levels, to be the optimum product for urban growing.

This initiative has been on the drawing board for two years; we are now ready to share the concept with interested parties – Councils, Urban Farms, Community Enterprises, “Concrete” Allotments (that being hard standing/waste land), schools, disabled and older people.