Voting now open for the 2025 Bedfordshire Choice Award!

The twelve shortlisted projects in the 2025 CPRE Bedfordshire Living Countryside Awards are all eligible for the Bedfordshire Choice Award.

This award goes to the project that best promotes a living and thriving countryside as chosen by the people of Bedfordshire.

Each entry is summarised below.

Barton-le-Clay Coronation Community Garden

The community garden is a collaboration between the Parish Council, Barton-le-Clay Rotary Club, Blooming Barton volunteers and local residents. Volunteers have used their skills to build bird boxes and compost storage areas, as well as planting. The Garden boosts wellbeing through walks, as a place to meet and as a place to enjoy the environment.

Biggleswade Community Gardens

Biggleswade Community Gardens is a volunteer-led initiative which manages several sites across the town, cultivating fruits, vegetables, and flowers for communal enjoyment. Community is at the heart of the project with events including barbecues and plant swaps, as well as promoting physical and mental health. Sustainability is also key, whether it’s supporting wildlife or using recycled materials.

Bloomin’ Well

Bloomin’ Well provides a safe and inclusive space for people with learning disabilities, autism, and mental health difficulties to engage in social and therapeutic horticulture activities. The project helps develop skills, promotes wellbeing and raises awareness. Education and outreach initiatives are an important part of their advocacy work.

Clophill Lakes Nature Reserve

The new nature reserve at Clophill Lakes has been developed by the Greensand Trust, with a very high level of volunteer involvement. The site will be managed to maintain the valuable mosaic of wetland, grassland, open water and scrub habitats. Accessible paths and visitor facilities help make it a real community asset. 

Disco-licious Foodstore and Kitchen

Disco-licious was created as a community hub where people could come and enjoy good food that was sourced as locally as possible, as well as somewhere to buy the very best of local produce. Products stocked in the shop are also used in the kitchen. The team pride themselves on their warm welcome and product knowledge.

Dunstable Wombles

Dunstable Wombles are a group of volunteers who want to make a difference, their ethos is ‘it’s not our rubbish, but it is our town!’ They hold community events, loan equipment to solo litter pickers, and support young people completing their Duke of Edinburgh award. They have helped others set up litter picking groups, sharing knowledge and experience.

Edible High Town

Edible High Town’s community gardeners look after nine little patches on public land in High Town, Luton. People of all ages and abilities come together to grow fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers for everyone to share. They help keep the area tidy and litter free, lobby the council to be more nature friendly, and organise nature-based activities like walks and picnics.

Kingsbrook and Cauldwell Community Allotment

Over the past year a dedicated community volunteer group has transformed an unused piece of land into a growing space with raised beds made entirely from recycled materials. Last summer, volunteers took home tomatoes, potatoes, radishes, salad and herbs, sharing photos and recipes with each other. Work has started on a wildlife area.

Meppershall Parish Council

The Parish Council have been taking the lead in developing green spaces around the village, involving local people in the projects which include developing a large allotment area, restoring a nature reserve, and improving play areas. Local volunteers were recently involved in restoring and planting 400 metres of hedgerow. Future plans include planting a wildflower area.

Repair Cafe Leighton Buzzard

The Repair Cafe Leighton Buzzard was set up in March 2023 as a grassroots community response to the climate emergency. Volunteer-led monthly pop-up community events run ten times a year, fixing household and textile items, as well as providing advice and sharing skills. The Repair Cafe is also a space for social wellbeing for both volunteers and visitors, providing chat, tea and cake.

SIG Penrose Roots

Since 2014, SIG Penrose Roots has been at the forefront of green social prescribing in Bedfordshire through their therapeutic Roots to Recovery community garden, an important nature-based health resource for local communities and healthcare providers. They are an inclusive organisation, supporting people experiencing social isolation, mental ill-health and neurodiversity.

Wooden Hill Coffee Roasters

Wooden Hill are local coffee roasters, supplying Fairtrade and Direct Trade Coffee to cafes and restaurants across the area. They dedicate a tree through the Forest of Marston Vale for every 100kgs of coffee roasted, 2025 marks ten years of this initiative with 1,700 trees planted to date.