Tony Sharps, community farm manager and environmental educator, dies aged 72
Original report:
Tony Sharps, who worked with young people through community farming and outdoor learning, has died of cancer aged 72. A Guardian obituary traces his work from Bristol’s Windmill Hill City Farm to Lambourne End Centre in Essex.
Tony Sharps, a community farm manager whose work focused on helping young people connect with nature, has died of cancer aged 72, according to a Guardian obituary written by a friend. After working in residential childcare and qualifying in community and youth work, he joined Bristol’s Windmill Hill City Farm in 1981 as a youth supervisor and farm manager.
Sharps also ran a farm during VSO service in India in the mid-1990s. He became farm coordinator at Lambourne End Centre in Essex in 2002, helping build its youth development work. In 2017, the London Environmental Educators’ Forum awarded him a fellowship for environmental and sustainability education. He retired to Wells in 2022.
Sharps’s career reflects the city farms movement’s aim of bringing urban residents closer to nature and changing how children engage with food and sustainability. The obituary records his longstanding association with the Federation of City Farms, now part of Social Farms & Gardens, whose remit extends to community-managed green spaces.
Source
the Guardian — 1 November 2026
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