Steyning-in-Bloom

I am writing this article on behalf of the Steyning–in-Bloom team (SIB). We are all aware that they are a very small group of volunteers dedicated to improve the appearance of the town mainly with the use of floral displays and competitions to improve resident’s gardens, allotments and business premises. This hopefully leads to a much better social environment, encourages tourism and helps protect our thriving High Street.

It has long been the intention of SIB to make improvements to their floral displays but there are limitations due to the amount of street furniture within the town and most importantly the lack of investment funding.

In discussions with SIB over the past few months I have learnt of their plan to improve the entrance to the town on the grass area adjacent to the Catholic Church along Bramber Road, with the provision of a new floral display creating something that is more original and provides a stunning and welcoming entrance to the town and not just a plain lamp post type pole. Unfortunately they have been unable to instigate their plan because of the lack of investment money.

I decided to take up their project with the objective to create a design of their wishes, do the necessary research and costing, achieve the financial backing and have the new planter installed and ready for planting by the end of April 2019.
After several months of work you can see by the artist impression the basic design of what is going to be a Stunning Town Entrance with a sign and 6 hanging baskets with a circular planting trough around the base accompanied by a Silhouette of St Cuthman all to a bespoke creation by a local blacksmith.

I am pleased to tell you I have raised a considerable amount of money from grants and donation from The Steyning Society, Steyning Horticultural Society, Steyning Parish Council and WSCC Local Community Fund. To achieve this project my aim is to improve on this fund raising and hopefully raise extra money for the replacement of existing planters and a new floral display at the Horsham Road end of the town.

With the cooperation of Steyning Parish Council I have opened a crowd funding site in their name to receive donations from the community. If you enter www.spacehive.com into your computer, scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter STEYNING in the search bar you will be shown a picture of the artist impression of our project. Click on the picture and you will be taken to our fund raising page and you will be able to view all the information.

The crowd funding site will close on the 12th of April 2019 so please view today and if possible please make a donation.

Let us see if crowd funding works for Steyning and achieve my aim of doubling the target I have set on the site. Thank you in advance for your donation and I would like to say a big thank you to the small group of retired volunteers, The Steyning-in-Bloom Team, who work so hard fund raising to make our town such a delightful place to live with their wonderful floral displays.

Charles Ashby. Chairman Steyning Horticultural Society.