Public vote secures £70,000 Lottery windfall for Peterborough's Up The Garden Bath

Dave Poulton and Kez Hayes Palmer, co-founders of Up The Garden Bath, have won £70,000 from the National Lottery after a public vote.

The public has voted for £70,000 of National Lottery funding to be donated to a Peterborough-based community interest company.

The windfall has been awarded to the educational and environmental community project Up The Garden Bath.

Its co-founders Dave Poulton and Kez Hayes Palmer won over the public with their work to recycle old bathtubs and transform them into educational garden planters for schools, community centres and residential care homes.

They say the money will be used to continue their work to bring people together, strengthen their local community and make a difference to people’s lives.

To secure the money, the business, which is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) that launched in 2020, had to feature on regional television with viewers asked to nominate their favourites to win a share of £4 million as part of this year’s People’s Projects initiative.

As well as recycling bath tubs, the business uses other disused materials to create various garden accessories.

But it also provides free, fun, interactive activity workshops and programmes on subjects including sustainability, recycling, and healthy eating.

Afterwards, Kez Hayes said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have taken part in The People’s Projects this year.

"It has provided us with a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of the work we do, and we can’t thank the public enough for getting behind us and giving us the opportunity to make our community a better place for all.

"We can not express how humbled we are.

"This funding will enable us to deliver our fun, interactive educational workshops to more people.

"We want to encourage people to think more about recycling and growing their own produce.

"We want to make gardening accessible to everyone regardless of their demographic or physical abilities.

Dave Poulton said: “In three years we have managed to install more than 50 of our upcycled bathtub planters into facilities across Cambridgeshire.

"This funding will go a long way and help us grow.”