Wycombe Wanderers players will be feasting on home-grown vegetables from their very own training ground next season following the launch of a new charity allotment project.

High Wycombe charity One Can Hope has started work on designing and building an allotment at the club’s Booker training ground days after the former town mayor broke the ground on a new ‘legacy fruit orchard’.

The partnership was arranged in a bid to raise awareness of food waste, with UK households throwing out seven million tonnes of food each year – enough to fill the club’s Adams Park stadium more than 80 times.

The project, designed by volunteer and award-winning designer Vicky Davies, is supported by Waitrose High Wycombe, together providing growing expertise, seeds, tools and equipment.

Cllr Hanif, who handed over the mayoral chains on Saturday, said: “This is a wonderful way to engage the local community and provide health benefits in terms of learning and producing food to eat.”

Sarah Mordaunt, managing director of One Can Hope said, “Partnerships are so important to our organisation and we are so pleased to be working together with Wycombe Wanderers and Waitrose.”

This project will enable the club’s nutrition chef Ahmed Maaref to use the produce as part of the diet co-developed between Ahmed and the club’s coaching staff to help the players remain consistently healthy throughout the season.

The club’s head of commercial Damian Irvine said: “Being able to grow his own produce will help Ahmed continue to provide healthy choices to the squad each day at training and also save the club money on its food costs.

“The project highlights the fantastic work being done on our doorstep by Sarah and her team at One Can Hope, and build our relationship with the fantastic new Waitrose store at Handy Cross.”

For more information, visit www.onecanhope.org.uk