Join CAT students for a free lecture by John Little exploring urban community gardening, and the restoration of brownfield sites. Runs Monday 20 April at 7pm.    

We are delighted to welcome guest lecturer John Little to CAT during our postgraduate teaching week for the ‘Restoration Ecology’ module.  

In this lecture and Q&A, John will outline his ‘care not capital’ campaign which looks at moving money away from capital infrastructure projects and into green spaces.  Looking at the need to have more trained gardeners to look after new and existing spaces, particularly brownfield sites, and how being a public space gardener entails more than horticulture.  

The talk will also explore the gardening approaches and techniques that benefit Biodiversity. Delving into the merit of keeping and repurposing waste on site to create beautiful and biodiverse spaces, the benefit of green roofs, and questioning the current emphasis on using topsoil in new projects, especially on highways and new developments. 

Key information

• Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
• Date: Monday 20 April 2026
• Start and finish times: 7pm-8:30pm
• Location: Sheppard Theatre, WISE building
• Free entry but limited spaces so please sign up in advance
• Book an evening meal in CAT’s café and join our students to discuss and debate before the lecture begins.

  • This can be prebooked for £10 alongside your public lecture booking below.
  • Will be served at 6:00pm before the lecture begins.
  • This can only be prebooked before the event and cannot be purchased onsite.
  • Donnelly’s bar open from 8.30pm.  

• Lecture is recorded for student learning purposes only and won’t be available publicly online. Book to join us in person.

If you have any questions about this event please direct them to gsmo@cat.org.uk.

Speaker bio

John Little is one of the most influential figures in contemporary horticulture, he is an expert in green roofing and public-space gardening and after 18 years of looking after social housing greenspace, he started carenotcapital.org, a ‘not for profits’ campaign to train gardeners in everything other than straight horticulture. In 2008 he launched a range of small green roof shelters including bike and bin storage. greenroofshelters.co.uk.