Gardeners awarded People's Millions
21 December 2009
More than a dozen gardening projects all over the country have won up to £50,000 in the People's Millions contest, in which the public chose good causes to benefit from lottery money.
Viewers in each of ITV's 15 regions were asked to choose projects to receive a grant from the Big Lottery Fund by voting in a phone poll on ITV regional news programmes.
Among the winners was Wildlife Gardening Wales, run by the North Wales Wildlife Trust, the only gardening project in Wales to win a grant. The money will now go towards helping schools and communities create about ten new gardens across the whole of north Wales, transforming disused waste ground into productive areas where wildlife can thrive alongside fruit and vegetable growing.
“We've had a massive amount of support,” says project leader Anna Williams. “For me as a gardener it's really exciting to think that a gardening project can win these things.”
In all, 70 grants were awarded around the country, of which 13 went to gardening projects, from the Lukes Wood project in Suffolk, which will recreate a traditional orchard as well as extending wildlife habitats, to the transformation of an overgrown area of land in Leigh, Lancashire, into community allotments.