Success in the 2021 South and South East in Bloom awards

Although there was no awards ceremony to attend again this year Royal Tunbridge Wells in Bloom and the Council achieved great results in the 2021 South and South East in Bloom competition.

We were notified of the results on Friday 17 September and once again there was a Gold for Royal Tunbridge Wells, with the town also winning the large town category.

The town’s parks: Dunorlan Park, Grosvenor and Hilbert Park and Calverley Grounds were Gold award winners too, and Dunorlan Park was the overall winner of its category.

Other green spaces in the town, including Woodbury Park Cemetery and Tunbridge Wells Cemetery, were also recognised as worthy of awards.

Councillor Jane March, Portfolio Holder for Culture and Leisure said: ‘These are fantastic results and certainly well deserved.
‘Our staff, contractor and especially the volunteers and Friends’ groups have put in time and energy over the past very testing year and it gives us a tremendous boost to be recognised as a town that appreciates green space.’

Volunteers and Friends groups play an active role in the life of the parks and open spaces, anyone interested in joining them can find details in our Volunteering in the park page.

Peter Every, the Council’s Parks Team Leader said: ‘Over the past year we have seen the importance of our parks and green open spaces to the wellbeing of our communities. Horticulture is only a small part of South and South East in Bloom, community involvement plays an important role, it’s thanks to the support and involvement of our volunteers and Friends groups that we have managed to achieve success in these awards.’

Judges visited the area in July to see for themselves this year’s entries to the competition.

The full results are:

Large town category

Tunbridge Wells – Gold and category winner.

Large park category

Dunorlan Park – Gold and category winner

Grosvenor and Hilbert - Gold

Calverley Grounds – Gold

Large cemetery category

Tunbridge Wells – Gold

Church yard category

Woodbury Park Cemetery – Silver Gilt