Summer is over, and Buckingham Town Council replaced the summer planters and baskets in Buckingham town centre with winter themed displays in the Autumn. The winter planting is now coming into flower ready for the spring.
This year the planters, which are hired from Plantscape, include a variety of lovely winter pansies, trailing ivy, euonymus, japonica and mixed spring bulbs (daffodils, tulips and snowdrops) in a peat-free compost.
There are seventeen planters in total, and these are situated in the town centre, Lace Hill Community Centre, and outside Shopmobility in Cornwalls Meadow Car Park.
The splendid winter hanging baskets that can be enjoyed throughout the town centre are filled with red skimmia, cool wave violas, silver leaf calocephalus, silver and gold euonymus, gaultheria with red berries and erica heather, all planted in lime-free compost and moss lined baskets. The baskets are supplied by Preston Bissett Nurseries.
The addition of planters outside the Old Town Hall was made possible by a joint project between Buckingham Town Council and the Buckinghamshire Council Buckingham & Villages Community Board. Funding for the containers in the summer 2023 and for the winter 2023/2024 containers and planters was granted by the Community Board as part of a joint Buckingham Town Centre Regeneration Project.
Buckingham Town Council completed the arrangements for the additional planters and the winter flowers to match the existing arrangements in 2023. The reception to the new planters has been excellent – with much enjoyment of this new feature in the town centre, which have been enjoyed by residents and visitors alike. As the funding was for one year only the cost and upkeep of these planters will be taken over by The Villiers Hotel in summer 2024.
Cllr. Robin Stuchbury, Chair of the Town Centre and Events Committee, said:
“I hope people have enjoyed the hanging baskets and planters which the Town Centre and Events Committee continues to fund. We have worked in partnership with the Community Board and Villiers to install planters outside the Town Hall, mainly to resolve some long-standing vehicle issues, but also to improve the environment in that area of the town centre. We will soon be looking to the spring and the new summer planters for 2024 which will hopefully make the town centre more welcoming and support local businesses and the community.”
The Chair of the Buckingham and Villages Community Board, Howard Mordue, said:
“The removal of the loading/unloading outside the Old Town Hall enabled the planters to be put in place last year. It makes the area outside the Old Town Hall a much more attractive sight when coming up the High Street from the Old Gaol.
I am very pleased that the Community Board enabled a partnership to be formed between Buckingham Town Council and the Villiers Hotel to enhance this end of the Town and that the planters will continue to be funded by the Villiers Hotel.”
Bruce Cave of Villiers Hotel said that:
“‘We at Villiers Hotel have been delighted to work with Buckingham Town Council and the Buckingham & Villages Community Board to input planters at the front of the Old Town Hall, which together with the signage and lighting erected on the Old Town Hall has ensured that this end of town now looks loved and tended, enabling the local community to utilise the building’s ballroom for wedding, banqueting and conferencing, whereas as before the building itself looked as if it was a redundant building with cars parked haphazardly and illegally on the council’s land in front of the roundabout – a real win for the residents of Buckingham.”
