We just can’t stop winning awards

Our community horticultural efforts in Arlington Square continue to be recognised by organisations both local and national.

◆ We were recently awarded second place in the London Garden Society’s best Large Public Square. We were runner-up to St James’s Square in SW1, which is maintained by professional gardeners paid for by the businesses and residents surrounding the square.

◆ In the Royal Horticultural Society’s It’s Your Neighbourhood competition the judges again gave us the top accolade of ‘Outstanding’.

◆ London in Bloom awarded us a silver gilt in the Best Small Park category.

◆ In the Islington in Bloom 2015 awards, Best Residential Communal Garden category, we were pronounced Champion of Champions.

◆ We applied for a Community Green Flag for the first time this year – and received the highest banding possible from the judges. The Green Flag Award Scheme (www.greenflagaward.org) recog nises and rewards the best green spaces in the UK and beyond.

◆ Most exciting of all, we entered the People’s Choice competition organised by the Green Flag Award Scheme. To our amazement, in a public vote and in stiff competition with more than 1,500 of the nation’s best parks, we were awarded fourth place.

Third was Maidstone’s Mote Park, second Margam Park in Neath Port Talbot, South Wales and first was Victoria Park in Tower Hamlets. There is no truth in the rumour that we are retaliating by creating a boating lake and bandstand before next year’s competition. But we can rejoice in the knowledge that Arlington Square is now officially the fourth best-loved park in the whole of the UK.

These accolades are testimony to the hard work of our gardening volunteers, the tireless leadership of Arlington Association’s chair Gordon McArthur and the immaculate planting wisdom of garden designer Paul Thompson. Congratulations to all of them.