FRIENDS of Hardie Park in Stanford-le-Hope are bidding to bag a cash boost from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative.

Tesco works with Groundwork to run its community funding scheme, which sees grants of £2,000, £1,000 and £500 awarded to local community projects.

Three groups in every Tesco region have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.

Friends of Hardie Park's new Cycle Hub Project is one of the groups on the shortlist.

The funding grant will help support an apprentice and develop The Old Spokes Home cycle hub

at Hardie Park which is taking unwanted bicycles and refurbishing them to make them available

at very low cost to local people.

Rob Groves, CEO at Hardie Park said: "This is a really exciting project enabling the park to help our community access affordable bikes. We are training a local young person to learn a valuable skill and deliver the service.

"At the same time, educate and inform our users regarding safe,

affordable cycle use, maintenance and travel. The Tesco Bags of Help funding will allow us to

support and develop this valuable community project. We would love Tesco shoppers to get

behind us and use their blue token at Basildon Mayflower Extra, Langdon Hills Superstore or

Billericay Express."

Voting is open in all Tesco stores in January, February and March and customers will cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out each time they shop.

Tesco's Bags of Help scheme has already provided over £80 million to more than 27,000 projects

across Britain. Tesco customers get the chance to vote for three different groups every time they

shop. Every three months, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco's regions will

be awarded funding.

David Page, Head of Community at Tesco, said: "Bags of Help contributes funds to community

projects up and down the country and we've been overwhelmed by the response from customers

voting in their local stores. We're looking forward to seeing more projects brought to life."