Hospitals League of Friends in line for carrier bag cash

The supermarket has teamed up with Groundwork on its Bags of Help initiative, which see grants of £12,000, £10,000 and £8,000 – all raised from the 5p bag levy – being awarded to environmental and greenspace projects.

The League of Friends, which has raised thousands of pounds to buy scanners at the hospital is one of three groups in each of Tesco’s 416 regions shortlisted to receive the cash award. And shoppers are being invited to vote for who they think should get the top grant.

A League spokesman said: “The League of Friends of Crawley Hospitals are plannning to regenerate the Stroke Ward garden with the intention of making it dementia friendly and more accessible to all patients using the West Green Hospital.

“The League of Friends would like to thank Tesco for their time and effort in helping our charity.

“We need to appeal for Crawley people to vote for our project to enable us to complete the work, which will enrich the lives of Crawley Hospitals patients.”

The Crawley stores where shoppers can vote are Hazelwick Extra, Crawley.dotcom, Downland Drive Express, Pound Hill Express, Haslett Avenue Express and Ifield Express.

Voting is open until November 13 and customers cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out each time they shop.

This is the second round of the initiative: the first round saw around eight million shoppers vote in stores across the UK earlier this year.

Lindsey Crompton, head of community at Tesco, said: “The first round of the Bags of Help initiative was a fantastic success. “In total 1,170 community groups were awarded £8,000, £10,000 or £12,000 - that’s a massive £11.7 million being invested into local projects.

“We are already seeing some great results from groups transforming their own environmental and greenspace areas. We are absolutely delighted to open the voting for round two.

“There are some fantastic projects on the shortlists and we can’t wait to see them come to life in hundreds of communities.”

Groundwork’s national Chief Executive, Graham Duxbury, said: “Bags of Help is giving our communities both the funding and the support to create better, healthier and greener places for everyone to enjoy.

“We’ve been thrilled to see the diversity of projects that have applied for funding, ranging from outdoor classrooms, sports facilities, community gardens, play areas and everything in between.

“They’re all fantastic projects that make a real difference in our neighbourhoods.

“We’re looking forward to learning the results of the customer vote and then supporting each group to bring their project to life.”