The winner of the 5th ‘Bath’s Bloomin’ Students’ Garden competition this year is Ronald Bradberry, a PhD researcher in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bath, for his flat in Beaufort East.

The competition was originally set up by Cllr Shaun McGall and is organised by the Student Community Partnership, made up of the Council and student and staff representatives of the University of Bath and Bath Spa University.

James Turner and housemates from the University of Bath came second closely with Fiona Haines from Bath Spa University third.

This year the competition was sponsored by Roman City and Trustease Lettings and the entries were judged by Graham Evans from the Council’s Parks dept.

It is great that this annual competition is now in its 5th Year, and those who enter the competetion do a great job with their gardens.

However, in our honest opinion the mast majority of gardens in privately rented houses across Oldfield Park are not maintained well by their landlords/ladies.

The Council really now needs to work with the ‘good’ landlords and letting agencies, such as Roman City, to work towards the introduction of garden maintainance standards in the Council’s HMO Accreditation Scheme which cover nearly 2,000 HMOs in Oldfield Park and the wider Council area. Please email us with your thought on this idea.