Judges have visited Altrincham to score the town as part of this year’s North West in Bloom competition.
Judges John Bilsborough and Teresa Potter joined volunteers from Altrincham in Bloom for a tour around the town’s environmental projects, and were accompanied by representatives from partner organisations Trafford Council, One Trafford Partnership and Altrincham Unlimited.
Altrincham In Bloom is going for a fourth straight gold award in the regional competition.
In addition to the town’s usual entry in the Large Towns category, Altrincham Unlimited and Altrincham In Bloom have worked closely together on a Town Centres category entry.
Two commercial entries have been made by double gold award winners The Old Roebuck and the Stamford Quarter shopping centre. A first-time entry was also made by The Orange Tree pub on Old Market Place.
As ever, the partners have been paying special attention to efforts which result in ‘Greening Grey Britain’.
This has included the installation of 10 railing planters around Altrincham Interchange and a dozen lamp post planters around the Hale end of town, with another dozen on their way for Regent Road and the Barrington Road gateway.
A Living Wall has also been created alongside Altrincham Interchange, and special efforts have been made to encourage wildlife by installing bird boxes and hedgehog houses and building an enormous Bug Hotel (‘Altrincham’s Airborne BnB’) on Shaw’s Green with children from Navigation Primary School.
Included in Altrincham’s Large Town entry were public green spaces looked after by the One Trafford Partnership along with volunteer groups.
Barrington Green, the Gardens at St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, John Leigh Park, King George V Pool and Denzell Gardens and the Devisdale were all visited and assessed by the judges for the non-competitive ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ awards.
Other projects visited include the town centre’s Community Planter Scheme, the Pretty Wild Reservation on Church Street, and the Green Gateway site where plans are being made for a ‘Welcome To Altrincham’ carpet bedding feature in 2018.
Accompanied by the Mayor of Trafford, Cllr Jonathan Coupe, the Altrincham In Bloom team and commercial entrants will find out how well they scored at an Awards Ceremony in Southport on November 3rd. The ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ entries will find out how well they did on November 1st and 2nd.
