Tameside in Bloom 2009
Tameside in Bloom 2009
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Spring Preparation
Each year our nursery produces almost five hundred thousand plants which are used in bedding displays as well as two thousand hanging baskets, six hundred flower troughs and tubs and twenty-seven flower towers. Our staff visit hundreds of schools, community groups, businesses and members of the public to gain their commitment to improving the local environment through their involvement with Tameside in Bloom.
Spring Displays
In the past three years we have planted over seven hundred and fifty thousand Spring bulbs along major highway gateways to the borough and in our parks and open spaces using a revolutionary machine from Luby and Sons which plants approximately twenty-seven thousand bulbs per hour Our nursery produces five hundred Winter and Spring hanging baskets and ensures that all our formal flower beds are planted with Spring flowering plants. This year alone our gardening staff planted some one hundred and eighty thousand Spring bedding plants across Tameside.
Public Art
In recent years the Council has commissioned and installed eighteen statues and other pieces of street art across the borough.
Environmental Responsibility
We have over seventy Eco-schools in Tameside encouraging hundreds of schoolchildren to take an active interest in the environment. We recently introduced a managed refuse service and have seen our recycling rates increase to over 50% in some areas and are on track to achieve our target of over 35% as a the borough in 2009-2010.
Residents’ Gardens
Each year, our District Assemblies run Gardening Competitions in each town across Tameside. This year has seen over four hundred entrants and our range of promotional and educational events such as Gardener’s Question Time at local libraries attracts hundreds of local gardeners every year.
Permanent Landscaping
We have increased the use of high quality permanent landscaping in all our new landscaping schemes which helps to provide all year round interest and reduces the quantity of annual bedding used. Over six thousand new shrubs have been planted along Lord Sheldon Way alone. Six thousand new trees have been planted in Swallows Wood as a prelude to the introduction of the new road scheme.
Summer Preparation
We have commissioned and installed seventeen new purpose-built hanging basket trees along the central reservation of Wellington Road in Ashton and have undertaken a three hundred thousand pound refurbishment scheme at Dukinfield Park. A one hundred and twenty thousand pound scheme to introduce a new games area in Hyde Park has been recently completed and we have submitted eleven of our parks for the prestigious Green Flag Awards.
Summer Displays
Our gardening staff plant some three hundred and twenty thousand summer bedding plants throughout Tameside each year. They put out fifteen hundred Summer hanging baskets, six hundred flower tubs and troughs and twenty-seven large flower towers each Summer. It takes three two-man teams working six days per week to keep the baskets, troughs and tubs fed and watered.
Business Involvement
Working with local businesses we provide advice and guidance on improving their sites for the maximum benefit to the local environment. Many businesses are involved with the In Bloom initiative through both the care of their own sites and for sponsorship of individual sites or garden competitions.
Parks for People
The Council has committed in excess of two million pounds of new capital funding towards major park refurbishment works in the past two years. In 2009 we had submitted applications for eleven Green Flags, five Green Pennants and one Heritage Award.
Conservation and Biodiversity
This year the Council’s woodlands have achieved UK Woodland Assurance Standard which recognises sustainable woodlands management and we continue to work with local school groups on a wide range of environmental projects as part of the National Curriculum.
Community Participation
Our staff have worked with over two hundred schoolchildren and groups on community planting schemes and we have worked with a community payback team on over seventy-five environmental clean ups. Many Tameside gardening staff give up their own time to work for the Willow Wood Hospice in maintaining the high quality of the hospice grounds. We organise and hold networking events for our gardening competition entrants and north-west In Bloom Neighbourhood Award entries enabling the group to learn best practice from each other.