2:59pm Monday 14th July 2008
By Tarik Al Rasheed
HEART of England in Bloom judges were back in town again to cast a searching eye over local communities, businesses and projects entered in the Neighbourhoods Award section of the competition.
Malvern had five entries in the Neighbourhood Awards category this year, comfortably besting its previous highest of two.
They were Malvern Community Hospital, the Madresfield Road Allotments, Lansdowne Crescent, the Elgar Avenue Community Garden and award-winning pub The Nags Head.
Malvern in Bloom chairman John Jordan, whose own involvement with In Bloom started with the Community Hospital back in 2006, was delighted with the bumper crop of entries.
"My aim has been to involve as many people as possible with In Bloom activities. This year we have opened Malvern in Bloom up to include a lot more of the town, but even that was not wide enough to include everybody, so I encouraged people to have an entry into the Neighbourhood Awards," he said. "I would hope that we will get even more entries next year. I already have my eye on one or two more."
Cllr Jordan hopes the Community Hospital can repeat its Gold Award success of last year when the results are announced next month.
"We certainly hope we have got it again," he said. "The garden is looking pretty good and I don't think we could have done any more."
John Fletcher, of the Madresfield Road Allotments Association, is hoping to improve on the merit award the allotments won last year.
"It would certainly be nice to get an outstanding this year, but we will have to wait patiently to find out," he said. "It went extremely well, and at the end the judges commented that the allotments were very good last year, and even better this time."
Mr Fletcher said the judges were very impressed with the allotments' giveaway Table, where people can leave any surplus plants, produce or gardening equipment.
Malvern Town Council chairman Caroline Bovey was delighted with how the judging went at the Elgar Community Garden, despite it having been the site of a major police operation the day before.
"The police did their best, and there was very little damage to any of the flowers, although there was some to the path which has been recently laid," she said. "Overall it went very well. The judges were very positive about everything that has been done and everything that the residents are planning to do, and everyone came away feeling very positive about the garden's future."
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