Rochdale Training becomes major sponsor of Rochdale in Bloom

Photo: Rochdale Training

Deputy Mayor Billy Sheerin with Rochdale Training students

Local business training provider Rochdale Training has been named as a major sponsor of this year’s Rochdale in Bloom initiative.

Rochdale in Bloom scooped an outstanding number of awards at the 2018 RHS In Bloom contest, with a gold award for the third year in a row in the Large Town/Small City category at North West in Bloom, plus gold at the national Britain in Bloom.

To kick off the sponsorship, students of Rochdale Training will be designing and manufacturing a memorial fence to be installed at the newly restored memorial garden in Castleton.

This ambitious project is already underway, and is only possible because of materials being donated by local company, Met-Connect.

To celebrate the start of the project, Deputy Mayor Billy Sheerin spent the day at Rochdale Training on Friday (7 March). He spent time with the fabrication, welding, machining and fitting departments, working with the six young people chosen to lead the project.

Councillor Sheerin said: “It was a real pleasure to work with the students and staff. I really did enjoy myself; it was like starting my past career all over again. The invitation to come again will be taken up.

“I am also extremely pleased at the progress of the Memorial Fence project; it really is coming along.”

Paul Ellison, Rochdale in Bloom vice chairman, said: “I’m thrilled that such a large local company has come on board with Rochdale in Bloom, and I look forward to our first year of sponsorship.

“The wonderful memorial fence is the first of several exciting projects we hope to collaborate on, including the anticipated Dippy the dinosaur feature.”

The Royal Horticultural Society’s Britain in Bloom is one of the most effective, and longest running, environmental competitions in the UK, which pits rural villages, urban corners and city centres against one another across a range of criteria that includes horticultural know-how, community engagement, efforts to bolster biodiversity and climate change adaptation.