Ref. 30040-12RESIDENTS of Cricklade are being urged to give their town a spring clean next week in the hope of capturing a national award.

The tidy-up is the first step in a campaign led by the Cricklade Bloomers, a group that hopes to put the picturesque Saxon town among the winners in this year's Britain in Bloom competition.

"We won a silver medal last year in the small towns category and we are hoping to do as well if not better than that," said the Bloomers' chairwoman Anita Barrett, who is also president of Cricklade Gardening Club.

"The competition is about more than flowers. For instance next week we are asking people to go outside and look out for weeds and grass growing up where it shouldn't be and to tidy them up."

The group will have a skip outside the Leisure Centre on Saturday, May 1, in which green waste can be dumped.

"We will also be discussing how to enhance the entrance roads to Cricklade by planting shrubs."

The Bloomers held their first meeting in January.

"Since then we have doubled out numbers and now have ten members. Clearly interest is growing but we would like more," said Mrs Barrett, a professional garden designer who has lived in Cricklade for 27 years and has three grown-up children.

"This is a pretty town, but we need people to come up with ideas about what can be done to make it look even better."

Cricklade, with a population of just under 5,000, is well-known for its Saxon parish church and its fritillary meadow. Hordes of visitors go there each year to view the rare wild flowers.

The Bloomers include representatives from the Town Council, local clubs and from a group of houses for retired people.

"We are also hoping to involve Scouts, Cubs and other young people," said Mrs Barrett.

The group's name was chosen at its first meeting after members decided to regard their tidy-up efforts as fun.

The Britain in Bloom competition will be judged in June or July.

"We get to know the date only a couple of weeks beforehand," she added.

Shirley Mathias