WEST Auckland will be awash with colour next spring thanks to an ambitious bulb planting scheme.
Some 12,000 daffodil and crocus are due to be planted with the West Auckland in Bloom group planting the first swathe along East green last week. The bulbs were provided by West Auckland Parish Council. Parish councillor and group member Neil Simpson said: “We’ll plant some on the [main] green and some around Oakley Cross school. We’ll just keep going until we run out of them.”
The village was awarded a level three improvement grade in the Northumbria-in-Bloom environmental competition’s Its Your Neighbourhood scheme.
It was the village’s first attempt at the competition.
Group member Audrey Beck said: “We were three points short of being level four. We got 66 points and 69 was the next level. I think we have done really well.”
Cllr Simpson added: “We have had a lot of good comments, but we don’t get the three words we need, ‘Can I help?’.”
He urged anyone who wants to get involved to read the village noticeboard for information about the group and its activities.
Next year the group wants to enter the large village category of Northumbria in Bloom and aim to add more planters and to swap the summer flowers for winter ones in the coming weeks.
Jean Pattison, of West Auckland in Bloom, said: “We are very proud of [the achievement] and we could not have achieved this with out the help of villagers, businesses, Smurfit Kappa’s workforce and the parish council, and everyone that supported us with their donations. We will be entering the next stage this next year which will be Northumbria in Bloom and we would hope that our residents and businesses will give us that extra support that we will need to make it a complete success and make us all proud of our village.”
