Chris Cooke

I attended the 'City in Bloom' working group meeting earlier this week and must admit that I left the meeting feeling rather disappointed.

I appreciate at this current time that cuts are an inevitable fact of life, but do we really need to be taking the axe to large parts of the 'City In Bloom' competition?

For example, this year there will be no hanging baskets supplied by the Council for the area east of the Old Steine, therefore Kemp Town will be without these 'blasts' of colour brightening up the streets.  It's not a huge cost and to cancel these floral displays seems rather silly - after all, we only had about four such displays throughout the whole of Kemp Town !

In addition, numerous categories have been cut from the competition, such as 'best front garden', 'best balcony' and 'best hanging basket'.

I know some of you will say that there are more important matters at the moment, and I would agree to some extent, but these 'smaller issues' do matter to local residents.

When times are hard, people do find comfort in entering their 'pride and joy' in such competitions, and people do look for a splash of colour to brighten up their day, and in my view, making these cuts seems both mean and rather sad.

I'm no fan of drab streets ... give me a splash of colour any day.
 
Chris Cooke
Chair - Kemp Town In Bloom
Montague Street