A community’s efforts to fill their town with colour for Cumbria in Bloom 2023 have been rewarded.

Barrow-in-Furness won a silver award in the Pride in Your Community category of this year’s county-wide horticultural awards.

The High Sheriff of Cumbria, Samantha Scott, presented the certificate to Marie Richards, Interim Senior Manager, Outdoor and Leisure at Westmorland and Furness Council, and David Haughian, the council’s Assistant Director of Community Infrastructure.

The council worked with Barrow BID, Cumbria Woodlands, council contractors Continental Landscapes, school children and the wider community to create Barrow’s first Cumbria in Bloom entry for more than 15 years.

School pupils helped fill hanging baskets and planters with pollen-rich flowering plants supplied by Westmorland and Furness Council and chosen to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinators during Barrow’s first ever community planting day.

Staff and service users from two local groups, Furness Homeless Shelter and Love Barrow Families, designed planted beds for two roundabouts in the town.

Meanwhile, at the 45-acre, Thomas Mawson-designed Barrow Park, the Cumbria in Bloom judging panel saw a newly planted avenue of 15 flowering cherry trees as well as some of the 650 woodland trees planted in the town thanks to funding from The Queen’s Green Canopy and the Cumbria Coastal Community Forest.

Cumbria in Bloom Administrator Liz Auld told the awards ceremony at Kendal Town Hall that the team effort had given “a colourful, tidy and cheerful appearance to the town centre”.

“The result is amazing,” Mrs Auld said, adding: “Well done, Barrow!”

Councillor Dyan Jones, Cabinet Member for Customer and Waste Services at Westmorland and Furness Council, said: “It is really super when people come together from across a community to boost the town’s biodiversity in this way. It was a pleasure to see Barrow in full bloom this summer, thanks to all involved.

“Congratulations also to Kendal, Ulverston and all the other winners across Westmorland and Furness for putting on such wonderful displays.

“As an ecologically aware council, we look forward to building on this excellent achievement in the years ahead, inspiring other towns and villages across the area to do the same.”