On Sunday 26th June the completion of the Decoy Pond restoration project was celebrated with a special ribbon-cutting ceremony. The Deputy Mayor, Councillor Mike Thompson, gave a short speech before officially reopening the Pond and its shoreline walk.

Others who attended included local MP Stephen Lloyd, Fran Davis from the Community Spaces Lottery Fund, members of the Friends of the Hampden Park, Council Parks and Gardens staff and representatives of OHES Environmental who carried out all of the site works. The event was organised by The Friends of the Hampden Park who were responsible for raising £50,000 towards the £130,000 project.

Follow the link to 'Decoy Pond' to read more.

St. John's Meads School go Airbourne

Children from St. John's Meads County Primary School had a chance to show off their gardening handiwork to the Deputy Mayor on 10th June. This was the culmination of the annual competition to design a garden bed near Holywell Café at the west end of the seafront.

The garden theme this year is Airbourne in Bloom. The winning design includes an hot air balloon and a Red Arrow with the sun shining brightly from one corner of the sky. The garden will remain until the early autumn.

The competition is administered by Tim Sorensen of the Eastbourne Education Business Partnership.

Justices of the Peace celebrate 650 years

The Justices of the Peace, more commonly called magistrates, first became part of the judicial system in 1361 during the reign of King Edward III. Council Parks and Gardens staff, along with the seafront contract gardeners, have created a planted badge bed to help commemorate the 650th anniversary of the founding of this branch of our nation's legal system.

Magistrates are trained but unpaid. They deal with over 95% of all crime and motoring offences in the country. Currently there are about 160 magistrates serving the community in the Eastbourne and Hastings area.

New plant information labels at Hampden Park

Visitors to the Arboretum and History Garden at Hampden Park can now enjoy seeing the names and other information on individual labels next to the plants.

Each label shows the English and scientific name, the country or region of origin and year of introduction to Britain. There is a range of fifty different plants in a long border running below attractive specimen trees.

A downloadable booklet and pocket guide to the garden is available from the 'History Garden' link.