Vote now to help our Southwark parks

What would you do with £400,000? Southwark Council wants to spend it making your parks and play areas safer and more enjoyable. But we need your help.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has launched the scheme to regenerate ten open spaces, and Londoners are being given the chance to vote on which ones will receive a £400,000 grant.

Two Southwark parks have been shortlisted for the vote: Dickens Square and Camberwell Green, and each of them are in the running for a £400,000 makeover.

You can decide which London park gets the grant, by voting online, sending a text message or mailing a postal vote. Voting closes on Friday January 30 2009.

The three ways to vote are:

• Online – go to www.london.gov.uk/parksvote
• Text – text ’parks’ and your postcode to short code 62967. This will automatically vote for the closest park to where the voter lives in their borough. Texts will cost 10p plus your standard network rate
• Post – you can request a postal vote form by calling City Hall’s Public Liaison Unit on 020 7983 4100

What we will do with the money

At Camberwell Green, we aim to create an oasis of calm among the surrounding roads by building a new cafe kiosk and toilet block, providing better planting, and putting up signs celebrating the Green's rich heritage. All this should make it a better-used and better-loved space.

At Dickens Square we would integrate the park, adventure playground and neighboring mosque into a vibrant green neighborhood centre, and support the value of the site as a varied inner-city habitat.

So vote for your borough and help make Southwark an even better place to live.

Burgess Park could get £2 million!

The mayor of London will also award a single grant of up to £2 million to one large park for a makeover. The Southwark park shortlisted for this money is Burgess Park. This grant will be decided by the mayor rather than by public vote, with advice from a panel of experts.