ABOUT US
Banstead Village has entered the Royal Horticultural Society Britain in Bloom Competition on three occasions 2017, 2018 and 2019.
In our first year we achieved a very creditable Silver Award, in 2018 a Silver Gilt and in 2019 we are proud to say we achieved a Gold Award.
Participating groups report a wide range of benefits such as cleaner, greener and safer surroundings, a growing sense of community pride, and increased commercial enterprise and tourism.
The Britain in Bloom Campaign concentrate on 3 core areas:
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Horticultural Achievements
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Environmental Responsibility
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Community Participation
What have we been doing as a Bloom group?
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Caring for All Saints’ church open spaces
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Enhancing the public open spaces in and around our village particularly in the High Street
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Helping to care for school gardens
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Maintaining Banstead library garden area
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Planting trees and bulbs and creating floral displays in community spaces
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Organising clean up events, repairing and repainting street benches and encouraging sponsorship and support by local businesses
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Regenerating unused areas with the involvement of local people
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Created a weekly litter picking group and ‘Adopt a road’ scheme for individual litter pickers
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Creating wildflower meadows and maintaining conservation areas
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Encouraging people to adopt environmentally-aware activities
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Creating a volunteer group, promoting well-being, engagement and caring for the local environment
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Create fund raising events to promote awareness of the group and raise money for projects in the village
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Involve local children’s groups in environmentally friendly fun competitions
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Encourage the promotion of gardening activities in local nursing homes and day centres
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Work to raise the profile of Banstead Village by lobbying for more council funding for our public spaces
"In Bloom"
HS Britain in Bloom is a nationwide community gardening campaign to transform cities, towns and villages. Which has been helping people improve their local environment since 1964.
Social, economic, environmental, transformational: the far-reaching impacts of Britain’s biggest community horticulture movement.
Contact us if you want help
or have a suggestion!!!!
Litter picking in Banstead
A volunteer from Banstead Village in Bloom thought it would be a great idea to set up a litter picking group in Banstead. On New Year’s Eve 2018, Banstead Village in Bloom arranged a litter pick along Winkworth Road and were delighted when 7 people turned up. They collected around 25 bags of litter and pulled many fly-tipped items from the hedgerow and that was the start of the weekly litter picking group that meets every Monday morning for two hours at 9.30am. Reigate and Banstead council supply us with litter pickers and purple community bags and collect them once filled.
We have over 50 volunteers who regularly pick litter. Some enjoy picking every Monday morning as part of a group, others prefer to pick under the ‘Adopt a Road’ scheme, in which local residents sign up to look after a road or area and Banstead Village in Bloom supply them with bags, pickers and vests. Some pick every week others less often but all of our joint work is proving to make Banstead a very litter free area.
Since starting we have filled thousands of purple bags with litter. Our group has inspired other groups to start up and there are now groups picking in Nork, Kingswood, Tadworth and Burgh Heath. We have found mattresses, chairs, suitcases, guns, knuckle dusters, tins of paint, nappies, tyres, prosthetic limbs, clothes, hundreds of capsules of nitrous oxide, a motorbike, a car, several bikes, hazardous cans of waste, and even a kitchen sink!
If you would like to be part of keeping Banstead clear of litter, please complete the contact form and we will be in touch.
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