London's Green Corners Award

Calling on Londoners who turn the capital green

Today The Conservation Foundation is launching its Green Corners Awards inviting all Londoners to join the campaign to make London one of the world's greenest capital cities. The search is now on to find the beautiful, unusual, unexpected, inspirational, gorgeous, delicious and witty green corners.

The Green Corners Awards celebrate Londoners whose often out of the way green spaces improve the quality of life for people living and working in the capital. Inclusive and inspiring, they enable anyone to play a part in making London greener and also generate great goodwill in communities.

This year the awards emphasise the vital role green corners play in encouraging and supporting biodiversity throughout London. Says Conservation Foundation Director David Shreeve, "2010 is the UN's International Year of Biodiversity and London's Green Corners could well make the capital one of the most biodiverse places in the world." He continues, "Whilst Green Corners may be small, often secret places, they can be home to a host of plants and insects which added together play an important role in the quality of life and health of Londoners."

The Foundation, with support from the Tanner Trust, is running the awards over a full year, showing London's hidden green gems which come into their own at different times through the seasons. Says David Shreeve, "As well as bringing biodiversity to the urban landscape, they will enable individuals, communities and business to play their part in greening the city for the 2012 Olympics."

This is a gardening competition you don't need to have a garden to enter and the Foundation is also looking for individuals to nominate Green Corners which are looked after by neighbours, or strangers who nurture pavement plantings, roof terraces, balconies or simple window sills, alleyways or sacred spaces providing welcome breaks from the urban rush.

Other Green Corners worthy of awards are community areas, playgrounds with children's flowers and vegetable plots, mews transformed by green fingered neighbours, and green additions to bus stops and stations which brighten journeys.

The individual categories are:

· Community Green Corners - urban green spaces cared for and shared by people living nearby (supported and judged by Archant London).

· Edible Green Corners where herbs, fruit and vegetables thrive (supported and judged by Capital Growth's campaign for 2012 new food growing spaces).

· Green Corners for Health and Wellbeing - in offices and public buildings, as well as shops, hotels and restaurants which boost physical and mental wellbeing

· On The Move - green corners on boats, bikes, buses, trains, tubes, taxis or at stations and bus stops and visible from them as you pass.

· Mews Green Corners made colourful by green fingered neighbours (sponsored and judged by Lurot Brand).

· No Man's Land - unloved and uncared for strips of land, alleyways or cut throughs.

· Pavement Green Corners - pavement patches and tree wells (in association with Guerrilla Gardening's Pimp Your Pavement).

· Roof terraces, balconies and window sills with bird and insect loving plants (sponsored and judged by Capital Gardens).

· Sacred Spaces - peaceful places for quiet reflection (sponsored and judged by Natural England).

· School Green Corners where pupils and teachers get together to turn grey spaces green (in association with Tools Shed).

· Water-wise Green Corners planted to flourish whatever the weather (sponsored and judged by Thames Water).

· Young Londoners - green corners created by young people under 25.

The Judging Panel includes Christopher Woodward, Director of the Garden Museum, botanist David Bellamy and actress and keen gardener Susan Hampshire.

Monthly winners will be chosen for each category who will receive a certificate and local publicity and go forward to the final for judging at the beginning of 2011. Winners will receive special Green Corners prize and the nominators will be given a bottle of champagne. The overall winner of London's Green Corners will be presented with The Conservation Foundation's 25th Anniversary Trophy.

For more information on London's Green Corners Awards and details of how to enter, visit www.conservationfoundation.co.uk

Further Information:

The Conservation Foundation was founded in 1982 by David Shreeve and David Bellamy to promote positive environmental news, awareness and action. Since then it has created and managed a large number of initiatives involving a wide range of environmental issues.

London Green Corners Awards were first launched in 1992 and relaunched in 2007, The Conservation Foundation's 25th anniversary year. In 2008 a Special Award went to Islington Gardeners' Forgotten Corners, a group of seven who care for pavement side plots in Islington. Olley's Fish Experience in Herne Hill won a Blooming Fantastic Award for a gloriously colourful display that attracts attention from everyone going up and down Norwood Road. HMP Wandsworth won two awards and the Admin Garden, which greets everyone as they come through the prison walls, was singled out for a Blooming Fantastic Award. Other Green Corners honoured were a garden scheme to improve a garage site in Twickenham, an edible garden, a traffic island and hospital garden in Lambeth tended by Guerrilla Gardeners and the Sarastro restaurant in Westminster, a glorious green space on Drury Lane filled with colourful flowers.

The Judges in 2010 are Matthew Appleby (Horticulture Week), Pattie Barron (Evening Standard), David Bellamy, chairman of the judges, Rosie Boycott (Chair of London Food), Susan Hampshire (Actress and keen gardener), Geoff Martin (Group Editor, Archant London), David Shreeve (Director of The Conservation Foundation) and Christopher Woodward (Director of the Garden Museum).