A community group within Walkden, came together to decorate and clean the town on Saturday to ensure the town was ‘nice’ ahead of the remembrance parade on Sunday.
Walkden in Bloom made cascades and poppies and were up until 1am completing them, receiving flowers from a councillor to thank them for their hard work.
Mayor Paul Dennett commenting: “Seriously well-done Councillor Syed… and everyone involved. Your work here is deeply appreciated ahead of tomorrow’s Remembrance Sunday. Thank You!”
The group was created by the community, for the community and began on the 5th of April 2025. Paul Whitelegg the Walkden in Bloom vice-chair described how “we’ve just gone from strength to strength”.
“People have now started to respect the town, so we’re not having as much rubbish in the town.
“As a community, Walkden is growing stronger and stronger, and the town is obviously looking a lot nicer as well.”
The group set to work making remembrance crosses and poppies.
Saturday morning, the group set about on their community clean-up, which takes place on the second Saturday of every month. Along with cleaning, the group set about planting wooden crosses on and putting cascades and bunting up.
Their aim was to: “Make the place really nice and ready for the parade on Sunday.”
The group returned to the café, Hug-In-A-Mug after, where Karen, the owner looked after the group with refreshments.
Councillor Irfan Syed, the chair of Walkden in Bloom, visited the members with flowers and chocolate, to say thank you for all the hard work. He commented:
“Thank you so much Joanne, Sandra, Paul, and the beautiful kids for this deeply touching poppy display.
“You have created something truly special, a heartfelt tribute to honour those who gave everything for us and for this country. Your love, time, and care remind us what community and remembrance really mean. So proud and grateful to you all.”
The businesses in Walkden are also actively getting involved and helping to keep Walkden clean. Proper Barbers, a barber shop in Walkden, came out with their team and cleaned around 30 bags of leaves to ensure the town was clean ahead of the Remembrance Day parade on Sunday.
Darjeeling, an Indian restaurant in Walkden also gets involved, completing a clean at night-time before they shut. Paul described how “all the businesses are coming together.
“More people are visiting Walkden now because they’ve seen it’s so nice.”
The group recently decided to decorate the flower beds for events, decorating for Halloween, which was heavily loved by the community. Paul described how they initially thought it would get vandalised, however the flower beds were respected.
Paul also described how the process of winter plants transitioning from the summer plants will soon be in process, with Walkden In Bloom visiting nursery and care homes to fill the planters to place around the town.
“We’ve got some good projects to come up over Christmas, which is dead exciting, we just need to finalise it with the team and the community, what we all can do and what we all can contribute to make sure those flowerbeds look amazing.”
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