School children see competition garden turned into reality

Pupils from the Eco Club at St Mary’s Bluecoat CE Primary School showed off their garden design skills by winning first place in a public vote at the Shrewsbury Food Festival’s annual school garden competition this year.

More than 20 schools from across Shropshire entered the competition with their creative designs for a new school garden.

The three shortlisted entries were showcased at the Shrewsbury Food Festival in The Quarry and online. Over the weekend, 6,595 votes were received, with St Mary’s being the clear winner with 3,064 votes.

Developers Morris Property, who sponsored the competition, have now helped the Bridgnorth primary school turn their winning entry from design to reality.

The winning design featured a blue path to represent a river leading to a pond, peaceful seating areas, recycled tyres filled with wildflowers and lavender to attract insects and new storage sheds for sports equipment.

In addition to supplying two new sheds, fencing, plants and artwork to add year-round colour to the scheme, the team from Morris Property spent time cutting back hedges, carving out lost pathways, building sheds and installing the features designed by the school’s Eco Club.

Contracts Manager, Ian Carswell said: "The entry from St Mary’s was very well thought through and we were delighted to hand over the finished garden over to the Eco Club this week.

"We were surprised that so many schools took part in the competition and demonstrated so much commitment to their green spaces.”

Beth Heath from Shropshire Festivals said: “Thank you to Morris Property for launching the school garden competition in association with Shrewsbury Food Festival. Providing engaging and educational activities for kids at our festival is really important to our ethos, so the garden competition was a wonderful addition. It’s fantastic that a school in our community will get to enjoy and learn from their new garden for years to come.”