Westfield in Bloom

The Westfield in Bloom network is a new entry in the South West in Bloom competition. Spurred on by their first-time success in 2022, the group of volunteers led by Eleanor Jackson (convenor), Paul Millard (allotments liaison), Pat Williams (treasurer) and Ellen Vaughan (Curo tenants and Shakespeare Road project), built an entry from the award-winning individual projects for ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’.

In early July, the judges were taken on a tour of Westfield, starting at Trinity Methodist Church, with its outstanding hanging baskets courtesy of Westfield Parish Council. They visited the Fosseway School gardens, between the main entrance gate and the café, Westfield Primary School, which really has it all - orchard, re-wilding area, dipping pond and a garden showing a model coal mine, Swallows’ Office Garden where

vegetables and herbs for the Swallows’ café are grown, Westfield Allotments and Gardens Society’s sites, and finally, the new Waterside project. The judges had been reluctant to walk along the stream but when they saw what Westfield Parish Council is achieving and the evidence of residents’ consultation, they said it was so good it should be an entry in its own right.

Westfield in Bloom had all the required elements: horticulture excellence, thanks to Rob Wicke’s work on the hanging baskets, coal trucks and the Jubilee park at Elm Tree Avenue, ecological projects and environmental awareness and community engagement.

The theme, It’s Our Neighbourhood focussed on creating community identity and pride in Westfield.

Thanks are due to all the volunteers in all the projects, including the ‘guerrilla gardeners’ working on waste land, but especially the Parish Council and the anonymous former resident whose donation made it possible.