Ex-offenders graffiti garden to feature at Tatton Park

Mar 14 2008 By Owen Hughes

GREEN fingered offenders from Conwy are taking on the might of Britain’s horticultural elite.

A floral brick wall covered in graffiti – which was created by offenders on probation – has been accepted in the prestigious RHS Tatton Park Flower Show this summer.

The team will go head-to-head with the UK’s finest gardeners in the National Flowerbed Competition at Tatton Park in July.

This is the first time the show has accepted offenders to join their exalted ranks and will be entered alongside Conwy County Council’s own effort, a floral butterfly.

Masterminding both entries will be Peter Barton-Price, the council’s assistant manager for parks, who said: "We saw the partnership with the Probation Service as a great opportunity to look at some of the tasks we were unable to look at due to manpower and also to give an opportunity to people on probation.

"This is one of the pinnacles of the horticultural calendar, this is a big deal for us."

The entry came about as a result of the partnership between the North Wales Probation Area and the council. As a way of paying back their debt to society, the offenders have been ordered by the courts to do unpaid work beneficial to the community.

In Conwy, they have been helping to do manual work in local parks and at the authority’s Tanllan Nurseries in Llanelian, where the idea first germinated.

Community service supervisor Brian Dunt said: "No probation service has ever shown at the Tatton Show before and there’s never been a partnership arrangement with a council allowed to take part.

"The design is based on an anti-graffiti message – a brick wall with graffiti on it but made out of summer bedding plants.

"I’ve got a couple of lads who have finished their order who want to come back and help. It’s a first for the Probation Service, the council and Tatton."

The council has an impressive track record at Tatton. They won a silver award in 2006 and a silver gilt prize last year.