FRIENDS of a Kidderminster park are celebrating after winning a national award for their work to get local people into growing fruit and vegetables.

The Horsefair-based Friends of St George’s Park have clinched the £500 prize – one of 161 “Grassroots Giving” awards from the Skipton Building Society.

The Kidderminster group was up against competition from a total of 300 shortlisted projects and winners were chosen after more than 27,000 votes were cast in a nationwide ballot organised by “Grassroots Giving” and the “Project Dirt” online community.

Friends of St George’s Park chairman Spike Betterton said: “We are really pleased about winning this competition and are hugely grateful to all those that voted for us.

“The really big thing about this is that it is nationwide recognition of the work we have done in the park and especially our Let's Eat the Park (LEAP) project that began in June this year.”

The group’s secretary, Carol O'Brien, said: “We will use the money to further LEAP and produce pocket parks, micro-allotments, mini-orchards and nano-gardens in the Horsefair and surrounding areas.”

LEAP is a two-year programme developed by the Friends of St George's Park, with funding from the People's Health Trust, to increase the growing of fruit, vegetables and herbs in both St George's Park and Baxter Gardens Park and to establish growing sites in the community, producing many kinds of edible plant varieties.

A partnership with Wyre Forest District Council to develop the growing of food began in 2012 when the Friends of St George's group asked the authority to stop spraying herbicides in St George's Park and to join them in planting fruit trees and other edible plants.

The Skipton Building Society grant will add to the funding pot to develop the project further.

The Friends group has now teamed up with the Kidderminster Food Bank.

The LEAP project will give produce to the food bank, as well as being part of the local free food network centred on the Horsefair.

Mr Betterton said: “Winning this award has really put Let's Eat the Park on the national map of local community based projects that are making a real difference up and down the country.”

The Friends of St George's Park meets on the first Friday of the month at 7pm at the Co-operative Children's Centre on the corner of Radford Avenue and Coventry Street – and it welcomes new members.