Wall Heath in Bloom campaigners celebrate award win

Village volunteers were presented with a silver gilt award for their effort at the Bloom awards in Meriden on September 20 in the 60th year of the RHS’s Britain in Bloom gardening competition.

Sue Bolton, Wall Heath in Bloom's public engagement officer, said: “The local business and community support has been amazing and enabled us to create a lovely village display. The team was thrilled to receive a silver gilt award.”

Wall Heath in Bloom (Image: Wall Heath in Bloom)

Meanwhile, the established Stourbridge and Halesowen in Bloom campaigns both picked up gold awards.

Despite their successes, the borough’s Bloom campaigners say they are expecting to receive no financial support from Dudley Council next year as the authority looks to make savings to balance the books.

Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Council, however, said with the council switching to a new operating model he believes support will be available to help the campaigns.

He said: “The colour and feel-good factor in Wall Heath has been absolutely amazing. The borough is so lucky to have amazing volunteers across the whole borough. They really do show what community is all about and give that feeling of pride in our area.”

He said he looks forward to seeing the Bloom campaign sweeping into Kingswinford next year too.

Councillor Damian Corfield, the council's cabinet member for environment and highways, said he was "absolutely delighted to see such strong results for In Bloom" this year and he added: “While we are unable to provide funding for plants in the future we will continue to support as we always have with planting, maintenance, watering, weeding, painting and litter and graffiti removal and will be offering advice on ways of accessing external funding.

"We look forward to continuing to work alongside the dedicated community groups and volunteers who help to make the borough a cleaner, greener place to live.”