Two groups in Honiton are celebrating after landing a cash windfall of nearly £20,000 from a Tesco initiative.

Littletown Primary Academy and the Thelma Hulbert Gallery were awarded £10,000 and £8,000 respectively from Tesco’s Bags for Help grant, which sees the money raised by customers through the company’s five pence bag charge go directly back into the local community.

Littletown won a grant of £10,000 towards building a new jungle playground, while THG will use the £8,000 for its ‘Wild Art’ community garden project.

Work will now begin on spending the money on new attractions for pupils and visitors to the gallery.

Becky Jackson, of Littletown Primary Academy, said: “A huge thank you to everyone who voted for us. This money is going to make a huge difference to our nursery, enabling us to completely makeover our outside area for the children.

“This money will enable us to lay colourful safety surfacing, install a wooden climbing tower and create a inspiring environment for the youngest children. We will also be able to provide opportunities for the children to investigate with sand, water and gardening.”

Emma Molony, project co-ordinator at THG, added: “We are thrilled to have won this award and thank everyone for voting for us.

“The grant will help us create a mosaic picnic table for everyone to use in our community garden. Primary schools will now be creating mosaics with the artist Karen Wydler in a programme of workshops.

“We will also be developing our ‘Wild Art’ community garden to include more seating and musical sculptures created in workshops with Honiton community groups.”