The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm [John Williams]

THE Camden Garden Centre is one of those rarities in our borough – a business that gives back in a meaningful way.

Charity-run, it’s cultivated an understanding of the natural world in scores if not hundreds of young trainees over 40 years.

Gardening – like so many other important life skills – is not taught, beyond the very basics at least, in school and it follows that generations of young people have little to no knowledge of how things grow, or where and when to plant.

Gardens are of course the preserve of a select few in Camden. But those that have taken time to nurture a quiet little corner they call their own – whether it’s a backyard, balcony or window ledge – will know it to be a soulful and soothing activity bringing benefits that are hard to quantify.

The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, after its costly restoration two decades ago, could easily have focused on farming out expensive tickets to stellar shows, and pulled up a drawbridge to the community around it.

But the development of young people, who might have missed a boat or two in childhood, has remained at its core. Simply put, that is its fundamental reason for being.

Its staff are doing purposeful, potentially transformative and crucially affordable work in its state-of-the-art studios, which have been happily expanded this week.

These are the kind of organisations we want in the offices and high streets of Camden. We want more of the ones that give something back simply because they are more interested in that than slavishly turning a profit. Not because it makes good PR, or to tick a box.

Council leader Georgia Gould earlier this year was calling on more Camden firms to offer work experience, mentioning and apprenticeships – or offer up directors as community ambassadors.

Delivering a speech in King’s Cross, she spoke about how young people living in Camden often felt like they were on “an island of poverty” surrounded by impenetrable office glass – walking past but not involved.

It is perhaps a naive thought, but how much better off would we be without our town centres being dominated by faceless, closed-shop corporations; the kind of companies that need encouragement to do some good for the community they operate in. Life isn’t about making money.

The Camden Garden Centre and the Roundhouse are two Camden institutions that remind us of that.