Green shoots of recovery for Milk Street garden

A private garden in Frome which was dug up to safely excavate an explosive World War Two device is to get a makeover.

The garden of the property in Milk Street, was excavated last week as part of a multi-agency operation to safely remove the device, which was taken by the military to a remote rural area where a controlled explosion took place.

Roads were closed and around 100 households were asked to evacuate their homes while the investigation, dig and removal took place.

Following the completion of the excavation, Mendip District Council, acting on behalf of all the agencies involved in the operation, approached the local Homebase store in Frome to see whether they might be able to donate a few garden essentials to help the property’s tenants bring their garden back to life.

Homebase were happy to help, and have supplied tenants Terry Pinto and Paula Hammond with four bags of topsoil, a bag of grass seed and a selection of shrubs.

Harvey Siggs, leader of Mendip District Council said, “Once the excavation had been completed, the garden, not surprisingly, looked a bit of a mess. We asked Homebase whether they could help provide some soil and plants to bring it back to life and they agreed.

“I’m very grateful to Homebase for their generosity and support and hope their donation goes some way towards thanking Terry and Paula for the upheaval they experienced while the excavation took place.”

Ben Derrick, front end team leader and charity champion at Homebase’s Frome store said, “We knew all about the operation that had taken place in Frome and were only too happy to help donate some stock to help give the garden a new lease of life.

“We have always had fantastic support from people living in and around the town so were more than happy to give something back to the local community.”

Tenant Terry Pinto said, “This is a really generous gesture and I’m very thankful to Homebase for donating so much to us. The only problem is, I’ve now got to actually do some gardening!”