PaddingtonNow BID has secured a Gold Award at this year’s desktop judged version of the popular London in Bloom Awards.
Despite the cancellation of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and the nationwide Britain in Bloom competition due to the Coronavirus pandemic, this year’s London in Bloom contestants were invited to submit their proposals online.
Paddington BID maintains a 365 day greening contract which provides planters, troughs and hanging baskets across the area.
Throughout the pandemic all street side planting has been retained, maintained and seasonally replanted, even on closed premises and construction sites.
The BID felt it was vital to maintain this feel good impression of the area for those in lockdown and to be ready for when restrictions were eased and footfall returned.
The BID has continued to maintain plantings to soften the hard landscaping in the area, we have particularly paid attention to the many construction sites on our patch and through lockdown have tried to brighten closed businesses with colourful displays.
Judges commented:
‘It’s positive to see that in these challenging times, colour and trough floral displays have continued in the BID. The idea to include these displays outside closed premises demonstrates the BID teams thoughts in maintaining a good impression for residents, workers and visitors to the area.’
As a founding partner of the Neighbourhood Forum we combined with local residents to successfully apply for two CIL funding grants to design improvements to walking routes through the area, including wider pavements, better lighting and greening opportunities.
PBID have continued to provide a full security patrol service, paying particular attention to closed premises and environmental issues. This has been greatly appreciated by absentee businesses who found much needed reassurance from this at this time.
Commercial recycling is a key service for our businesses, funded entirely by the BID to reduce business cost and carbon footprint. This service dramatically reduces the number of vehicles in the area, further reducing carbon emissions, with a number of these vehicles being electric.
Besides our ongoing spot cleansing to tackle graffiti, environmental spills and fouling we have specifically focused on our only cultural and heritage site. The Alexander Fleming Museum was externally neglected so we deep cleaned the walls, entrance and pavement and added more external plant pots and planters.
Despite lockdown Paddington BID has continued to provide all of its key services to the area and maintained all of its planting and greening initiatives. We felt that this was critical in maintaining presence, reassurance and confidence in our area. Nothing has been neglected and standards have been maintained to our high expectations.
