On Tuesday the 10th of June we were very pleased to welcome Stephen Williams MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to Bedfords Park Walled Garden.
The minister made the visit on behalf of the Social Investment Business Group (SIB) grants, which is funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government. The garden was the recipient of a community assets capital grant from the SIB group in January of this year. The grant has supported the regeneration of the garden including restoring the original Georgian walls and rebuilding glasshouses including on the original footprint of the Georgian Pineapple and Victorian Fern houses.
Thomas Ermacora, Founder and Strategic Director of Clear Village, met with the minister and showed the progress that has been made on the project since April 2013, when works on the garden first started. With a large part of the renovation works done and the garden full of activity of builders, Seetec– and other volunteers, we think the minister was pretty impressed with what he saw!