Solid Gold Award 2005

Tameside in Bloom scooped a prestigious Gold Medal Award at this year's North West in Bloom Awards. Tameside beat Stockport, Trafford and Rochdale MBCs as Winner of the Large City Category in a ceremony at Bolton's Reebok Stadium in September. Tameside also took the Clean Sweep Award for having the cleanest streets across all categories, and picked up a National Nomination for Britain in Bloom 2006. This takes Tameside into an elite league of Large City entries, which includes Cardiff, Aberdeen, Nottingham and Doncaster and Gold Awards are the highest accolades within the North West in Bloom campaign. Tameside's tour-partners, Willow Wood Hospice, picked up a Highly Commended award for their gardens and grounds to add to the event.

Project Leader, David Sweeton, said: "It genuinely recognises how much our residents, schools, businesses and council staff contributed to In Bloom this year, we're absolutely delighted and we know we couldn't have achieved such a cracking result without them."

Tameside in Bloom's tour partners are also said to be thrilled with the news and proud to have been part of this year's entry, including Mottram Road Allotments, the Iris Gardening Club, Holden Clough Primary School, Park Bridge Heritage Centre and Willow Wood Hospice.