Residents of the Cradley Heath estate where popular teenager Danny Price tragically died two years ago have received over £80,000 to create a remembrance garden in his memory.

Members of the Codsall Estate New Tenants and Residents Association (CENTRA) came up with the idea to transform an area of public land into a memorial to Danny who died in June 2006 aged 19.

Work on the project, which is expected to cost £82,000 and will be joint-funded by Sandwell Council and Sandwell Homes, is planned to begin next month.

There are also plans to refurbish Buck Tunnel, an underpass near the spot where Danny died, where friends later decorated specially-provided panels with graffiti in tribute.

Chair of CENTRA, Judith Patridge, said: “Everyone knew Danny on the estate and he had a lot of friends here. For something positive to come of his death means it will not have been in vain.”

Speaking to the press for the first time, devastated mum Marina Price admitted she was still struggling to come to terms with Danny’s death.

Marina, who has lived on the estate for over 30 years, described her son as a typically adventurous teenager who loved fishing, motorbikes and spending time with his friends.

She said: “He was so bubbly, so full of life. We did not expect to lose him so soon. The pain is still as raw as the day it happened.”

Danny, a former pupil at Timbertree Primary School and Heathfield School, had started a new job at a Smethwick construction firm just two days before he died.

He lived on Meadow Walk with Marina, grandparents Gordon and Shirley and brothers Karl, 20, and Jamie, 16, sister Claire, 18.

Marina, a 43-year-old learning support assistant at Timbertree Primary School, was at home with the rest of the family when a friend of Danny’s came to say there had been an accident.

Marina ran to find her son unconscious and bleeding on the ground just yards from their home, where friends were administering CPR in a desperate attempt to save his life.

It later emerged Danny had been trying to “make a bang” by hitting a bullet from a nail gun with a hammer, and a sliver of metal had shot through his chest, piercing his heart and both lungs.

For Marina, the memorial garden – which will feature benches and a children’s play area centred around a weeping willow – offers some consolation her son will never be forgotten.

She said: “The garden will be a living thing, and through that Danny’s memory will live on.

“It will be a place for people to meet up and enjoy themselves and I think he would have liked that.”