Adding small splashes of colour around the community - that is the motto behind a new drive to spruce up Buckskin.
The Heart of Buckskin Community Planning Group has spearheaded a scheme to convert unused green spaces into small gardens and flower beds.
And members of the Buckskin Over 55’s club, known as the Ridgeway Ravers, are celebrating after putting the finishing touches on the first one.
The club’s six-strong team of Rose Whakeley, Mary Williams, Suzanne Hewins, Patsy Rice, Linda Warner and Maureen Long helped revamp overgrown bushes outside the Ridgeway Community Centre, in Blackdown Close.
Affectionately known as the Grunt Force Team, the group ripped out the bushes and planted bulbs, flowering plants and herbs.
Mrs Hewins, chairwoman of the Over 55’s club, said the garden is starting to bring residents closer together.
“It is a community garden with community support,” she said. “Now people are stopping and looking and enjoying something they wouldn’t have noticed before.
“We have a family that just live round the corner who come out and water the garden by themselves just because they want to. These spaces are the way forward, it has brought a community together.”
Last week the Heart of Buckskin’s chairman, Ray Dobing, picked The Triangle as the winning name for the green space following a competition.
He said: “The area was a mess before with overgrown bushes filled with cans and old tyres.
“This scheme helps the area look nicer.
“Buckskin has a reputation for trouble, so if the garden can bring in community support and get people coming together to share something then that is great.
“It is better than living in a place with no one talking and looking the other way.”
