Families have voted for their social landlords to spend £5,000 on new communal gardens to improve their housing estates in London’s East End.
The poll was carried out at Gateway Housing Association’s autumn fair to kick-off National Customer Service week.
Around 250 people turned up to watch performances by Young & Talented dance group which rehearses weekly at Bethnal Green’s Oxford House centre and the community choir from the nearby Sundial centre.
Children also had their own activities like face-painting and a bouncy castle, as well as arts and crafts competition, T-shirt printing and an urban arts bus.
One highlight was ‘Blenda-Venda’, where people of all ages cycled to generate power to make smoothies.
But the fare had its serious side, with interactive voting for tenants to choose how to reinvest money saved by Gateway back into the community, with a shortlist of five projects.
The tenants chose the communal gardens project as the one that should get the cash.
The fayre also had a repair workshop to learn how to carry out simple jobs in the home including replacing a tap washer and changing light fittings and smoke detectors.
Information stalls were also run on health, welfare, fuel, employment and getting online by severalk East End organisations such as the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, MyBnk and Limehouse Project as well as Gateway itself.
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