Published: Thursday 29th September 2022 | 12.23pm
Cannock Chase District is celebrating six Britain in Bloom awards across their parks and open spaces.
Britain in Bloom is Britain's nationwide gardening competition and a tool for building communities and tackling local issues together.
Gold awards were achieved at Cannock and Hednesford Park, Elmore Park won silver, Cannock Stadium and Ravenhill won silver gilt and Heath Hayes Park won a bronze award.
The Britain in Bloom criteria changed for 2022 to encourage entries to have a positive impact on the environment. The judging criteria encouraged changes that would benefit both people and the planet, such as promoting biodiversity and use planet-friendly gardening practices.
Marks are awarded for identifying local environmental issues and ways in which the issues are targeted using plants. Judging criteria is divided into 40% for horticulture, 30% for environment and 30% for community involvement.
The award ceremony took place in Birmingham on 22 September and was attended by Lynn Harley-Biggs (President of The Friends of Cannock Stadium Park) and the Futures group from South Staffordshire College, Cannock Campus. The young people from the Futures group have been involved in a wide range of tasks in our local parks such as cleaning moss from the railings, planting heathers, making a Jubilee raised bed, to decorating push bikes found in our parks to decorate the trail of the Queen’s Baton Relay visit in July 2022.
Councillor Adrienne Fitzgerald, Portfolio Leader for Housing, Heritage, and Leisure said: “I am so pleased that our parks and open spaces have received these awards. We have some outstanding Friends and community groups in our District, that work in partnership with our parks and open spaces teams. I would like to thank them for all their hardwork in making our District Blooming lovely.”
If you have a couple of hours a week free and would like to support your local park, please get in touch with Lynn Evans to find out more: Telephone 07855 099353 or email lynnevans@cannockchasedc.gov.uk