Melior Street Garden tucked behind The Shard.

This week Team London Bridge announced that they have been awarded a grant from the Tesco ‘Bags of Help’ project. Melior Street Garden, tucked away just behind London Bridge Station, is due for renovations with the grant money this spring.

Team London Bridge says that they will use the funding to maximise green space, re-plant, refurbish, and create a more sustainable garden treatment.

Melior Street Garden, a small public green space, serves as a work area for St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots, a charity organisation that helps train the homeless for the workforce in green initiative jobs. The motivation of the organisation is to allow for a therapeutic healing process through gardening to allow volunteers to practice necessary skills to re-enter the workforce.

“The gardeners are great. If you head down to the space there’s a chance that they are there working, they are always more than willing to chat,” said Henry Johnstone, Team London Bridge business manager. The Melior Street Garden is small, but one of the London Bridge areas best kept secrets.

“I work in the area and it is chaotic, especially with station renovations and all of the nearby tourist attractions, but I come here and can receive a moment or two of peace over my lunch break,” said a garden visitor who wished to remain unnamed.

The Tesco “Bags of Help” scheme uses money collected from the newly introduced five pence plastic bag charge to improve green spaces throughout the community. Tesco has teamed up with Groundwork, an organisation dedicated to providing and allocating resources towards building environmentally sustainable  communities.

“We are proud to be working with environmental improvement charity Groundwork, which specialises in transforming local green spaces for the better and will be helping us to administer the scheme,” said Tesco.

Tesco allows their customers to both nominate and vote for local projects that have been shortlisted for the grant. “It’s a government project, but I am happy to know that the 5p charge is going somewhere positive and that employees have a chance to vote for the project that their money contributes to,” said a Tesco employee.

The amount that the project receives will depend upon the public vote against other projects in the area. The first prize grant winner will receive £12,000 towards their project.

Customers who pass through local Tesco stores will be allowed a vote with each purchase. Voting will be open in stores across London Bridge and surrounding areas beginning next week.