Although the weather hasn’t been wonderful this month, the flower beds and planters are starting to provide some much-needed colour around the town, now that Shrewsbury Town Council has almost completed its summer planting scheme.
The mammoth task to bring the floral features to the town centre started at the beginning of this month and will see more than 300,000 home-grown blooms planted out in various locations in Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury’s award-winning show garden in the Dingle will see more than 30,000 plants in the formal flower beds, with the rest reserved for the wide variety of hanging baskets, tubs and planters that are on display around the town.
All of the blooms are grown from seed or plugs at the Town Council’s own greenhouse, which covers the size of a football pitch, at Weeping Cross Centre.
Helen Ball, town clerk for Shrewsbury Town Council, said: “We take a great pride in the magnificent floral traditions in Shrewsbury which helps to maintain our reputation as THE Town of Flowers for everyone who comes to the town.
“It takes a great deal of dedication from our staff to ensure that the flowers look great throughout the summer for the benefit of the whole town. We hope that the pride shown by our staff to ensure that we see the colourful floral displays is matched by our residents, shops and businesses.
“We all enjoy seeing the flowers and appreciate the hard work that goes into maintaining the floral features, and whilst there are occasions when we encounter some problems from a minority of people, we are asking local people to adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards any vandalism of the floral displays within the town centre.
“If you see something untoward, I urge everyone to do their bit for the benefit of the town and report it to the Town Council or the local policing team, who will be working closely with us to ensure that any vandalism is dealt with appropriately.”
Inspector Saf Ali, from Central Shropshire Safer Neighbourhood Team, added: “No-one wants to see incidents of mindless theft and damage to the floral displays in the town, and I share the frustrations of my Team Shrewsbury partners who often have to react to these incidents. The Town has comprehensive CCTV coverage, which is often used to identify offenders, and I cannot emphasise enough that anyone caught committing criminal offences, or acts of anti-social behaviour, will be held to account and potentially prosecuted should that be necessary.
“We are fortunate to have so many people working together in Shrewsbury to help develop the town centre as a place where people want to live, work and visit and wanton acts of vandalism which blight the town centre will not be tolerated.”
To report any incidents of damage of the floral planters in the town, please contact Shrewsbury Town Council on 01743 281010 during office hours or West Mercia Police on 101.
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