Bob’s Park gets a makeover from Old Ford Housing and Viola Trust

Construction trainees are rolling up their sleeves in London’s East End today to help breathe a new lease of life into a park and children’s play areaonce tended by a man named Bob.

They are putting their backs into a project to revamp Bob’s Park, a small open green in St Leonard’s Street in Bromley-by-Bow.

It used to be temded by a Tower Hamlets council gardiner, but fell into neglect when he died and became overgrown.

Six unemployed young people who have recently completed a City & Guild Construction course in Old Ford Housing Association’s construction training programme got paid work experience to help improve the open space.

They are putting in raised flowerbeds for Bromley-by-Bow centre’s therapeutic horticulture project, installing outdoor tables and seats, erecting a platform stage and renovating park furniture that had seen better days.

The £32,000 project is being paid for by both the housing association which runs the nearby St Steven’s Estate and the Veolia Environmental Trust through the Landfill Communities Fund.