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Burgh Beautiful Progress Report - August 2006The Burgh Beautiful Group are absolutely delighted to have been selected as Finalists in our first entry in Beautiful Scotland in Bloom. We can't quite believe it. Competition is stiff and we think our best chance of an Award is in the New Entrants Category. We don't hear any more until the Awards ceremony in Dunfermline on September 13th. There are 31 Finalists in the nine categories, from Cities to Wee villages and Coastal Resorts in between. In our Medium Town category (Electoral roll under 12,000) there are six finalists - Forres, Galashiels, Cupar, Dunblane (New Entrant Winner in 2004) Strathaven and ourselves.
We then got a phone call giving us a week's notice that the second round judges would be visiting us. It takes the four Finals Judges twelve days over a three week period to cover all the Finalists across Scotland. We happened to be the first on the judges' itinerary, first thing on Monday 31st July - unfortunately bin day and cardboard box collection day in Linlithgow High Street, plus litter from the weekend's activities. With 25% of the marks allocated for cleanliness, maintenance of hard landscaping and recycling, we tried to emphasise the latter. The NETS team had been through early on to tidy up and shops all along the High Street responded to an appeal to check the pavements in their area. The whole Burgh Beautiful planting team of Liz Burrows, John Carswell, Hazel Duguid, Diane Fairweather, Chantal Hamill, Kirsty Leonard, Jean Long and Shirley Smith worked really hard, raising plants, planting, deadheading, weeding and watering. We couldn't have done it without the huge amount of work done by the West Lothian NETS Team under Jim Saunders. This has been a real co-operative effort but special mention has to go to Liz Burrows, who stepped in and took on a huge amount of extra work when Kirsty tripped in the garden on her way to water the bedding plants awaiting planting, and broke her femur. Peter Fairweather provided invaluable help getting the Fair Trade border finished. This used recycled roof slates embedded in a dry mortar mix. Liz and Gordon Beatham, Sheena and Peter Roberts and Susan and Richard Toleman from the Fair Trade Steering Group spent a couple of hours with hammers and goggles helping Kirsty break up the large pile of slates. The temporary poster behind the bed has turned out to be rather larger than we envisaged and will hopefully be downsized when the Council put up the final version.
Jim Saunders and the NETs team have put in a huge amount of work and their floral displays are really eye-catching. The new feature at the Vennel used barrels obtained by Liz from North British Distillers at Addiewell and the hanging basket tree, new black metal planters at the Vennel shops and hanging baskets at the West Port were obtained with a grant from West Lothian Council.
The Vennel Gardens: Before and After! Newcomer Eileen Murray has taken on the Water Yett area with huge enthusiasm and has got residents in the area involved, very much in the spirit of community action in the Scotland in Bloom ethos. Primary schoolchildren were involved in the creation of tiles for the station waiting room and the St Michael's Parish Church Embroidery group of Cathy Irving, Helen McNeil, Netty Scott, Ella Sutherland and Diana Wallace made three stunning banners for the stairwell. Liz's barrels are looking fantastic, and First ScotRail have responded with hanging baskets on the Edinburgh side, and extra barrels in the car park. Both these areas do so much to cheer us all up and certainly impressed the judges.
Banners, Tiles and Barrels at the Station Plans for next year - Liz and Kirsty are looking at the possibility of getting an allotment society going. If you are interested in having an allotment, please let us know (see below for contact details). If we can demonstrate interest, then we can go to the Council with a request for a site. Or find somewhere ourselves. We are still waiting for the Council Legal department to sign the agreement with County Properties for us to plant the grass area at the Low Port Roundabout. Hopefully we will get that done this autumn. Letters on behalf of Burgh Beautiful to the Head Offices of Tesco, Bank of Scotland, Ladbroke's and Scotmid containing photos of the disgraceful state of the Regent Centre seem to have had an effect - it appears that things are stirring on that front at last. McCarthy and Stone are planning to make a bed on the corner of Springfield Road, but it has to wait until work on the new roundabout is finished. We will ask businesses to get together to brighten up the High Street in a co-ordinated and appropriate way. We are still looking for active helpers on the Planting Group - there in no need to attend the Steering Group meetings. We shall need help potting up winter bedding plugs and planting hyacinth bowls in the early autumn. We also hope to be planting some perennial beds this autumn. All offers of help gratefully received. Contact:
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The first round of judging took place on Tuesday 18th July and seemed to go
well. Liz Burrows, John Carswell and Jim Saunders guided the judge round
the planned two hour route, including a brief canal trip with John Aitken, a
visit to the Low Port School garden with Corinne Anderson and a walk through the
Annet House Garden. The whole Judges' route and commentary can be seen in the
portfolio that we produced for them. The portfolio is available as a
download for viewing/printing 
