CELEBRITY gardener Charlie Dimmock visited Andover to give two thumbs up to a new community allotment project for people with dementia.

Arbory Residential Home, in London Road, has set up the scheme to transformland at the back of its plot into allotments where people with dementia can enjoy growing flowers and vegetables in a safe environment.

It is hoped the plans will come to fruition by the end of the year.

On 24 April, Charlie Dimmock visited the home to learn more about the community allotment scheme.

She said: “Gardening and spending time outdoors has been shown to have many benefits for those with dementia and for people of all ages and abilities.”

Barry Sweetbaum, one of the owners at Arbory, said: “There are only a certain number of people who we can support. There are so many people living in the community and because of their dementia they have nowhere to go and nothing to do. We decided to use our land at the back to create the dementia friendly allotments to become somewhere where people from the community can go.”

The home would like to hear from anyone who can help with the project. Call manager Iain Slack on 01264 363363.