Piper's Area

The second community event was held on the 29th of September, it included bulb planting and a Plant and Produce Stall. If you missed this one, we will be having another plant and produce stall on May 11th 2014.
Last time we were very ably assisted by the 18^th Swindon Scout Group , whose numbers swelled the last event quite considerably (adults and children). The daffodils looked great, and a large number of these down Marlborough Road were planted by the Scouts.

Old Town Spring Clean +

Local Resident Myra Hartshorn inspired Carole Bent to ask PaRa & the OTBPA to support giving Old town some TLC through a "Spring clean & planting event."

PaRa committee members , Linda Kasmaty, Kareen Boyd , Susanne Webb, Carole Bent - and Cllr Nadine Watts became the working group. Great support came from SBC's Mark Walker and many people from the local community became involved, offering time, funds, expertise and taking part on the day.

Carole said " I'm pleased that by starting the ball rolling, it helped to create something positive. It was the combination of genuine goodwill and generosity of so many local people that made this happen - 75 people took part in the first event , had a great time and made a real difference ,so here's to more events like it !

Our first "Spring Clean + " event took place on Sunday 28th April between 2 - 4pm , bringing together local residents , members of our business community and council - planting and tidying our Old Town . This was the first of a number of events this year.

The 'before' photos were taken on the 6th of March to give an idea of the problems in Newport Street, it's amazing what you noticed when you looked. The changes made on April 28th have made a real difference to the appearance of the area.

And below the Key Findings from the afternoon:

OTCU PaRa review latest.docx
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Newport Street 'flower bed' above before and below afterwards.

With rubbish and some interesting pub cider glasses.
Below are 2 photos of the park bench outside the Co-op before the treatment

And a close up of the ivy:

Ivy certainly takes over, below what it looks like now, there were two people sitting on it on the 29th of April when I walked past.

The small flower bed beside the bench wasn't visible before the clean up.

Here is the area behind the bus stop:

And closer...

Behind the bus stop was a cigarette butt repository, Adrian and others tackled it head on.

It now looks lovely.

The Steam Railway bed is awaiting its clean up.

The area of green beneath the hoarding opposite Earle's newsagents was very unsavory:

Work on this was started in the morning, here we can see Jim Boyd in the foreground, Cllr Nadine Watts behind him, and Mr Watts chatting to Rose Earle who had just supplied tea and biscuits, and Kareen Boyd leaning on the railings.

This is what it looked like after the planting in the afternoon, the plants are still small, but will grow.

Below, laying out the pots in their final positions helped by Peter Biggs of Wanborough Herb Nurseries who was a tremendous help with choice of perennials for the bed and their arrangement.

Below Myra Hartshorne planting the first plant, it was her idea to improve the area with plants.

Thanks go to members of my 'team' who planted up the bed, they included Zoe and Zac with their 3 children, Mary Davies, Sarah Clements and Ann Lapin.

Who else should be mentioned? Rose Earle who has given tremendous support and supplied the plants by the Co-op and below the hoarding.

And the Wheatsheaf opposite Earle's newsagents for their kind donation of water to wet the very dry soil, and kindly allowed us to use their facilities all day. Their garden is a delight with miniature rhodedendrons about to flower.

Here's a close up to give more idea of the attention to detail, there's Solomon's Seal in the blue pot.

The document below was given to local businesses to inform them about what we were doing.

Old Town Clean up handout 7032013.docx
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