blooming marvellous

TRAFFORD is bloom-ing thanks to the green fingers of a group of volun-teers who run 'Friends of the Park' schemes in many of the borough's parks and play areas.

And following the success of the scheme, the Council is now looking for more would be Charlie Dimmocks to help start similar groups in other open spaces.

The groups meet on a regular basis with council officers and contracted landscape maintenance com-panies to discuss areas of concern such as vandalism, main-tenance and security, enabling the com-munity to take more of a pivotal role in how the borough's grounds are managed.

Since 1999, six friends of the parks groups have been set up in Walkden Gar-dens, Ashton on Mersey Park and Woodheys Park in Sale, Longford Park in Stret-ford and King George Pool and John Leigh Park in Alt-rincham.

Mark Saxon, parks asset manager, said: "The introduction of Friends of the Parks is about us listening to local residents to en-sure that they are involved in decisions that affect them in the area they live.

"Our response to the findings in the Community Strategy was to ask the community to join forces with us and take control of their public spaces by letting us and the contractors know how they wanted the parks to look."

Josephine Morley, chairman of Friends of Ashton on Mersey Park, said: "The scheme is a great way for like-minded people to get together to do something for the environment they live in."

For more infor-mation on Trafford's Friends of the Park schemes call 912 3667.