Claire shares details of this latest campaign from The Common Space. Ed
Bags of Help for the Bay! Vote at Tesco for The Common Space’s Lost Duver project!
Great news for Bay greenspaces! The Common Space’s Lost Duver project, a community planting initiative to help revitalise coastal landscape and public greenspace in the Bay area has been awarded £8,000 by the Tesco’s Bags of Help programme.
Turn £8,000 into £12,000
It’s one of three shortlisted projects and so now all that’s needed is everyone’s help to turn that £8,000 in to the top prize of £12,000 by casting their vote in their local Tesco stores.
Voting started on Monday (31st October), running through to 13th November and every vote counts!
Ian Boyd at Arc, and founder of The Common Space explains,
“The Common Space is a new not-for-profit organisation, working towards the revitalisation of public places, in particular in the Bay, and we’re delighted to have been picked by Tesco Bags of Help for our Lost Duver project.
“The Lost Duver project is literally locally grown! All around the Bay area, you can spot small hints and echoes of coastal flora such sea spurry and sea mouse-ear, reminders that this whole stretch was once a coastal landscape… a lost duver in fact!
“We’ve been trying to make space for this coastal palette wherever opportunities arise, along with the Bay CCT, Green Towns, Dinosaur Isle, the Isle of Wight Council, EWLP, local Town Councils and Sandown business association, Green Army volunteers, the Coastal Gardener and local groups! We believe that public places, community spaces and green infrastructure can deliver fantastic opportunities for wildlife encounter and exploration and that all of this has the power to regenerate.
“That’s why the Lost Duver project has ecology at its heart and involves creating a new style of landscaping, using a mix of native coastal plants as well as their garden equivalents, to create a real resource for biodiversity, so it’s a draw for wildlife as well as for visitors and residents. The hope is to bring all this together, in public places, street planting, parks and coastal walks, to create a 5-mile coastal garden.
“Through the Shaping the Bay community consultations, we’ve identified three fantastic spots spaced along those 5 miles; the gardens around the Lift in Shanklin, Battery Gardens in Lake and dune verges at Yaverland… the Tesco Bags of Help funding will be a brilliant boost towards our goal. It’s a long term project with all sorts of great stuff involved – plant rescue, propagation and seed collection, tweaks to maintenance and plant research. By Spring 2018, we should really start to see the results!”
Make sure to pop into your local Tesco store, in Lake or in Ryde to vote!
