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Once again our Garden Competition has been a huge success with many beautiful gardens being entered for the prize!

We have been blown away by the passion and commitment customers have shown in turning their gardens into beautiful showpieces. So much so that our Customer Forum who judge the competition have loved to see how green-fingered our customers are, and it has made it really difficult to choose a winner.

Each year we have an individual garden winner and a communal garden winner

Please see this year's winning gardens below.

🏆 Best Individual Garden goes to Jamie Rowe.


 

 

🏆 Best Communal Garden goes to Brunswick House, Runcorn.


 

 

Congratulations to our champions and thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition. You’ve created some beautiful spaces in Halton – well done.

If you feel inspired by the pictures of the winning gardens, why not plan your entry for next year?  Be sure to get planting in plenty of time in Spring and you could be the coveted 2025 winner!


 
<h2>Our Garden Competition 2024 Winners!</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>competition</h3>

Once again our Garden Competition has been a huge success with many beautiful gardens being entered for the prize!

We have been blown away by the passion and commitment customers have shown in turning their gardens into beautiful showpieces. So much so that our Customer Forum who judge the competition have loved to see how green-fingered our customers are, and it has made it really difficult to choose a winner.

Each year we have an individual garden winner and a communal garden winner

Please see this year's winning gardens below.

🏆 Best Individual Garden goes to&nbsp;Mr William Pye.


🏆 Best Communal Garden goes to Sycamore Flats.


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Congratulations to our champions and thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition. You’ve created some beautiful spaces in Halton – well done.

If you feel inspired by the pictures of the winning gardens, why not plan your entry for next year? &nbsp;Be sure to get planting in plenty of time in Spring and you could be the coveted 2024 winner!


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<h2>Our Garden Competition 2023 Winners!</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>competition</h3>

Our Garden Competition has been a big hit once again, with lots of stunning entries from our talented customers!

We’ve been blown away by the passion and effort that’s gone into these gardens - they've been transformed into beautiful, show-stopping spaces. Our Customer Forum, who had the tough job of judging, were seriously impressed by how green-fingered everyone is. Choosing the winners wasn’t easy!

As always, we’ve crowned two champions: one for the best individual garden and one for the best communal garden.

Please see this year's winning gardens below.

🏆 Best Individual Garden goes to&nbsp;Gillian Smith.


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🏆 Best Communal Garden goes to Arden Community Garden.


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Congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition. You’ve created some beautiful spaces in Halton - well done.

If you feel inspired by the pictures of the winning gardens, why not plan your entry for next year? &nbsp;Be sure to get planting in plenty of time, and you could be our 2026 winner!


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<h2>2025 Garden Competition Winners!</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>competition</h3>

A community garden supported by Halton Housing has achieved high recognition from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) for its excellence in horticulture and community involvement.

Arden Community Garden, located in Widnes, has been awarded a Level 4 certification from the UK’s leading gardening charity, a prestigious accolade just one level below the top RHS rating of Level 5.

This certification, achieved in the garden’s very first year, highlights the dedication and impact of the garden’s volunteers and community supporters.

Speaking on behalf of the garden, Millie Allen said: “We received our RHS certificate today, and we are thrilled to have achieved Level 4! With the highest mark being Level 5, reaching such a high level in our first year has blown us away. Thank you so much for all the support from Halton Housing over the past year.”

The RHS scoring system places particular emphasis on community engagement, which was a standout feature in Arden Community Garden’s evaluation. This certification celebrates not only the quality of the garden itself but also the active involvement and partnership of local residents, making it a true community achievement.

Halton Housing has been proud to support Arden Community Garden through granting use of the land, providing materials and resources including a storage shed. Last year, our teams held a 'Spruce up Your Streets' to help kick start the project, helping the garden grow into a valuable resource for the area.

On behalf of everyone at Halton Housing, we would like to congratulate all involved with the Arden Community Garden.


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<h2>Arden Community Garden receives certification from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)</h2>

This year we have held our popular annual garden competition for customers to showcase their outdoor spaces and celebrate the pride that each one takes in looking after their flowers and lawns.&nbsp;

2022 has been no exception and we have been blown away with the passion and commitment customers have shown in turning their gardens into beautiful showpieces. So much so that our Customer Forum who judge the competition have loved to see how green fingered our customers are, and it has made it really difficult to choose a winner.

The competition received over 15 entries from across the borough, for categories including Best Communal Garden and Best Individual Garden.

However, there could only be two winners, and so beating off stiff competition, we are delighted to announce the following winning gardens:

🏆 Best Individual Garden goes to Clare and James&nbsp;from Naughton Fields.

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Best Communal Garden goes to Brunswick Communal Garden which is mainly overseen by Ann Charlesworth. &nbsp;

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to our champions and thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition. You’ve created some beautiful spaces in Halton – well done.

If you feel inspired by the pictures of the winning gardens, why not plan your entry for next year. &nbsp;Be sure to get planting in plenty of time in Spring and you could be the coveted 2023 winner!


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<h2>Our Green Fingered Champions of 2022</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>competition</h3>

Following a successful Helping Hands application, we were delighted to award 'Wonky Garden'&nbsp;at Ditton Community Centre £1800 to support in extension works.

Wonky Garden allows like-minded green thumbs to come together and support in maintaining the beautiful garden which is filled with plants, flowers, herbs and vegetables.&nbsp;

Earlier this week, our&nbsp;Social Impact and Engagement&nbsp;Team and Customer Forum were invited to visit the Garden and see what difference the money will make. Angela, one of the volunteers, kindly guided our team around the garden and explained the huge positive impact that the garden is having on the local community.

Amy Harrison, one of Halton Housing's&nbsp;Social Impact and Engagement Officers said: "It was great to see how the money will be making a difference and going such a long way in bringing the local community together. I had a lovely time exploring the beautiful garden and would urge anyone to come to take a look and even volunteer!"

If you would like to get involved with the amazing work at Wonky Garden, get in touch at thewonkygarden@gmail.com or pop along to Ditton Community Centre to enquire.

This is a great opportunity for people of all ages to get involved, meet new people and be outdoors.

Thanks again to everyone at Wonky Garden for having us along and we cannot wait to visit again when the new extension is up and running!

If you or someone you know runs a community-based project that could benefit from financial support from the Helping Hands initiative, whether it’s a refurb of a scout hut, a kitchen makeover in a community centre, or a hospice garden in need of some&nbsp;TLC, get in touch today for an application form.

Visit the&nbsp;Helping Hands website page&nbsp;for further information.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Applications are next open from 4 September - 12&nbsp;November 2023.

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<h2>Halton Housing support local community garden with £1800</h2> <h3>community</h3> <h3>donation</h3> <h3>helping</h3> <h3>helping hands</h3> <h3>ditton</h3> <h3>widnes</h3>

Back again for 2024 – our popular customer garden competition is officially open!&nbsp;

We would like to celebrate and recognise customers who enjoy and take pride in their outside spaces.&nbsp;

Are you proud of your patch or just love gardening, why not share it with us and enter?&nbsp;&nbsp;

Whether your garden is small or large, a haven for wildlife, vibrant and colourful or full of veggies, we would like to hear from you. Like previous years, we're also accepting entrants from communual garden areas.&nbsp;

There are £50 worth Love to Shop gift vouchers for the winner of each category and certificates to be won, so what are you waiting for?

Last year, the best individual garden went to&nbsp;Mr William Pye and best communal garden was scooped by the communal garden at&nbsp;Sycamore flats.

Submit your entry for 2024 now!

Complete our form and upload your pictures.

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Enter Competition

Alternatively, email your photographs along with your name and contact details to involved@haltonhousing.co.uk&nbsp;or contact Georgina Crank,&nbsp;Social Impact and Engagement Officer on&nbsp;07711909835.&nbsp;

Please note, you must be a Halton Housing customer to enter.&nbsp;

Alternatively, contact your local&nbsp;Neighbourhood Officer who will be more than happy to nominate on your behalf.

The closing date for entries is Monday 1st July 2024&nbsp;and members of our Customer Forum will judge all entries received.

We can’t wait to see your entries, good luck!
<h2>Garden competition 2024 – enter now!</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>competition</h3> <h3>customer</h3>

Since opening in February 2025, Frank Street Community Garden in Widnes has grown from a disused garage site into a thriving green space at the heart of the community. What started as a small regeneration idea is now a welcoming place for connection, creativity and sustainability.

Local volunteers have worked hard to bring the garden to life. There are fruit trees, raised beds, a greenhouse, a polytunnel, a memorial bench, a bug house and even a mud kitchen for children. A pumpkin patch for Halloween is a new feature at the moment, and a free food cart is now available during garden opening hours to support local families.

The garden has also become a brilliant space for events. Easter and Halloween celebrations, a summer fayre and craft workshops have all taken place, bringing neighbours together. Moorfield School’s Eco Warriors have also been regular visitors, helping to inspire the next generation.

Halton Housing is proud to have supported the garden from the beginning. Our team helped dig out the site at the start of the project, and this month we provided eight 5x6ft fence panels to help repair the boundary and keep the garden secure.

“We’re proud to support Frank Street Community Garden and the incredible work being done by volunteers,” Georgina, Social Impact &amp; Engagement Officer explained - “It’s a brilliant example of how community spaces can grow into something truly special.”

To find out more, check opening times or get involved, visit the garden’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=615 <h2>Frank Street Community Garden Blossoms with Community Spirit - and a Helping Hand from Halton Housing</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>community</h3> <h3>support</h3> <h3>widnes</h3> <h3>repair</h3>

It’s back – our popular customer garden competition is officially open!&nbsp;

We would like to celebrate and recognise customers who enjoy and take pride in their outside spaces.&nbsp;

Are you proud of your patch or just love gardening, why not share it with us and enter?&nbsp;&nbsp;

Whether your garden is small or large, a haven for wildlife, vibrant and colourful or full of veggies, we would like to hear from you.&nbsp;

There are gift vouchers and certificates to be won, so what are you waiting for.

Last year, Clare and James from Naughton Fields were crowned winners of the best individual garden and Brunswick Communal Garden took best communal garden which was mainly overseen by Ann Charlesworth.&nbsp;

Submit your entry now!

Complete our form and upload your pictures.

.button {
background-color: #781d7e;
border: none;
color: white;
padding: 5px 50px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
font-size: 30px;
margin: 4px 2px;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 9px;
}

Enter Competition

Alternatively, email your photographs along with your name and contact details to involved@haltonhousing.co.uk.

Please note, you must be a Halton Housing customer to enter.&nbsp;

Alternatively, contact your local&nbsp;Neighbourhood Officer who will be more than happy nominate on your behalf.

The closing date for entries is Friday 30th June 2023 and members of our Customer Forum will judge all entries received.

We can’t wait to see your entries, good luck!
<h2>Garden competition 2023 – enter now!</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>competition</h3> <h3>customer</h3>

Back again for 2025 – our popular customer garden competition is officially open!&nbsp;

We would like to celebrate and recognise customers who enjoy and take pride in their outside spaces.&nbsp;

Are you proud of your patch or just love gardening, why not share it with us and enter?&nbsp;&nbsp;

Whether your garden is small or large, a haven for wildlife, vibrant and colourful or full of veggies, we would like to hear from you. Like previous years, we're also accepting entrants from communual garden areas.&nbsp;

There are £50 worth Love to Shop gift vouchers for the winner of each category and certificates to be won, so what are you waiting for?

Last year,&nbsp;Best Individual Garden was won by&nbsp;Jamie Rowe and&nbsp;Best Communal Garden was won by&nbsp;Brunswick House, Runcorn.

Submit your entry for 2025 now!

Complete our form and upload your pictures.

.button {
background-color: #781d7e;
border: none;
color: white;
padding: 5px 50px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
font-size: 30px;
margin: 4px 2px;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 9px;
}

Enter Competition

Alternatively, email your photographs along with your name and contact details to involved@haltonhousing.co.uk&nbsp;or contact Georgina Crank,&nbsp;Social Impact and Engagement Officer on&nbsp;07711909835.&nbsp;

Please note, you must be a Halton Housing customer to enter.&nbsp;

Alternatively, contact your local&nbsp;Neighbourhood Officer who will be more than happy to nominate on your behalf.

The closing date for entries is Wednesday 16th July&nbsp;2025 at 5pm.

Members of our Customer Forum will then judge all entries received.

We can’t wait to see your entries, good luck!
<h2>Garden competition 2025 – enter now!</h2> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>competition</h3> <h3>customer</h3>

The competition has now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered.&nbsp;

We’re looking for children in Grange to come up with the name, designed into a logo for our brand-new community garden in the area launching as part of our Destination Grange programme.

Located next to the Co-Op on Grangeway, the new garden will be open to all members of the community to use. Schools and local community groups will also be encouraged to use the garden for educational purposes.

So, if you know a budding artist, why not help them put pen to paper to create their unique design and you never know, it could be their logo design we choose. &nbsp;&nbsp;The design should include the name for the garden.

What’s more, the winner will have their logo design used at the new garden on a sign located at the entrance.

How to enter?

All you need is some pens or pencils and lots of imagination as well as a copy of our entry form which can be downloaded ready to print here.

If you don’t have access to a printer, you can pick up an entry form from one of these places:


Grangeway Community Centre, Runcorn WA7 5LY
Halton Housing, Waterfront Point, WA8 0TD


Completed designs can also be dropped off at these locations or emailing a picture/scan to involved@haltonhousing.co.uk.

The deadline for entries is 3rd March 2023.&nbsp;

The winner will be judged by our Social Impact and Engagement Team and will be announced and notified by 8th March 2023.

Some tips and suggestions for entering the competition:


The competition is open to any child or young person aged 5-11 years
Make sure to include the garden name, and some visual designs to decorate it that explain what your logo is about
Use eye catching colours and shapes, images and drawings
Use creative but bold lettering for your logo design so people can read it easily, and it can be viewed large or small and people can still read it
Please put the design on the template provided.
Most important BE CREATIVE!


Good luck to all entrants, we can’t wait to see your names and designs!
<h2>COMPETITION: Design a logo and create a catchy name for the new community garden in Grange</h2> <h3>destination grange</h3> <h3>competition</h3>

A community garden in Grangeway, Runcorn has been brought back to life with a spruce up and given a sprinkling of colour, thanks to funding from Halton Housing.&nbsp;

The garden at Grangeway Community Centre has been transformed by young people taking part in the Prince’s Trust programme.&nbsp;

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the garden became tired and underused. However, thanks to a donation of £200 by Halton Housing and the Prince’s Trust, the garden is now a vibrant and welcoming space for the local community to enjoy.

This week, former Halton Housing board member and current Mayor of Halton, Councillor Mark Dennett officially cut the ribbon to open the garden. &nbsp;

The garden is open Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm, with fruit and vegetable seeds for people to plant their own in the empty planters.

A huge well done to everybody involved in this project, helping Grangeway to be a neighbourhood the community can be proud of.&nbsp;
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<h2>Runcorn community garden transformed thanks to funding from Halton Housing</h2> <h3>community</h3> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>grange</h3>

A huge thank you to everyone who came along to the official opening of the new community garden in Grange last Friday.

The garden, located next to the Co-Op in Grange has been transformed by members of the community and Halton Housing colleagues over the last six months, as part of our Destination Grange programme.&nbsp;

It is a fantastic outdoor space that children and families in Grange can enjoy, and will look beautiful and colourful when the wild flowers and fruit trees begin to flourish in the Spring.&nbsp;

Despite the snowy conditions earlier in the day, the weather brightened up in the afternoon which saw over 90 people attend the Easter-themed event.&nbsp;

The Mayor of Halton, Councillor Mark Dennett officially cut the ribbon to open the garden and kick off an easter egg hunt for families to enjoy.&nbsp;

Local school children, William and Olivia who won the logo competition for the garden, were presented with a certificate by the Mayor.&nbsp;

Due to the weather, the main activities had to take place in Grange Community Centre which included face painting, crafts and activities, tombola, and Easter-themed games. The Barklafields Buskers ukelele band provided a soundtrack to the event, and even Peter Rabbit himself made a visit, posing for photographs with children.&nbsp;

Thank you to everyone who joined us, it was great to see everyone enjoying themselves.

If you would like to find out more or get involved at the new community garden in Grange, get in touch with our Social Impact and Engagement Team at involved@haltonhousing.co.uk.&nbsp;
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<h2>Grange Community Garden Officially Opened at Easter-themed event</h2> <h3>grange</h3> <h3>community</h3> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>destination</h3>

Back in October, as part or Destination Upton, we received a special request from Arden residents who wanted to transform their outdoor space into a community garden. To help kickstart the transformation we dedicated one of our 'Spruce Up Your Streets' events to the area, bringing together an eager team of Halton Housing colleagues and local residents who quickly set to work creating two patches for planting, four raised planters as well as installing a water butt, and a compost bin. See the story from October here.

Fast forward to today, and the once-vacant outdoor area is now a vibrant community garden, thanks to the hard work and dedication of local volunteers. What started as a patch of land is flourishing. Local residents have now also set up a Facebook page to share regular updates of their progress and gardening times. See their page here.

To recognise residents' dedication and to support them in their venture we have now also gifted them with a new shed and vouchers for tools to fill it.

We hope the garden continues to bloom and would like to thank all those involved for for creating such a beautiful space.
<h2>Arden outdoor space transformed into thriving community garden</h2> <h3>community</h3> <h3>garden</h3> <h3>volunteer</h3> <h3>destination upton</h3> <h3>widnes</h3> <h3>spruce up your street</h3>

Another great event was held at Grange Community Garden for the Summer Family Fun Day. 48 children along with family and friends came to enjoy all that the garden has to offer, packed with lots of fun activities.

The day involved a tombola stall, face painting by ‘Meg’s Magical Face’, and small business stalls including ‘K’s Kreations’, Wax Melt stall and ‘Naka's melts and scents’. We also had a special visit from Mickey Mouse from Aladdin's Cave Entertainments. Thanks to additional support from Travis Perkins through their Legacy Fund, the children also received&nbsp;a free school meal!

Thank you to the Mayor and Consort of Halton 2023 – 2024 (Councillor Val Hill and Councillor Stan Hill) for coming along to support.

We also had our local partners down from the Children's Centre and Halton HELPS. The Children's Centre also funded the day's activities by hiring toys from Halton Play Resource Centre.&nbsp;

Thanks to everyone for coming along and getting involved, and to our local partners and businesses for helping us to make the event possible.

Did you attend the day? Please fill out our survey and give us feedback; this helps us to shape future projects https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?i

If you weren't able to attend the day, but don’t want to miss out in the future, please email us at involved@haltonhousing.co.uk and we will add you to our mailing list for future events.

Want to hire the Grange Garden for your own event? All information can be found here ➡️ Grange Community Garden.

Find out about upcoming "FREE Grange Muddy Church activities" at our Grange Community Garden


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<h2>Grange Community Garden Summer Family Fun Day</h2> <h3>grange</h3> <h3>family</h3> <h3>fun</h3> <h3>community</h3> <h3>communal</h3> <h3>customer engagement</h3> <h3>engagement</h3>