A LEAD member of the Oswestry In Bloom team says they are still going to try to keep the town looking cheerful.

Chairman Betty Gull, a former mayor and recently-appointed Freeman of the town, admits the group is looking to continue their work in planting flowers around Oswestry.

Betty admits their plans for the year have been blown away by the unprecedented virus outbreak, but insists they will do all they can to maintain some form of competition, COVID-19 allowing.

"It's obviously going to be very difficult – the Heart of England competition has already been wiped out," said Betty.

"But we at Oswestry In Bloom are going to do our best to keep the town centre cheerful.

"I have talked to the people who help us plant so as long as the people who buys the plants for us do, we're still going to be creative in the places we normally are.

"We'll being doing some work in Central Car Park and it's all about keeping the town centre cheerful.

"We thought this year that it would be difficult, so we might want to do a window competition, which can be done via photo entries and we might get the public to vote on it.

"But we might need the paper's help on that so we'll see what will happen.

"We know this all relies on how the coronavirus plays out but we do have members in our committee who are young enough to do the judging of the fornt gardens if they need to.

"We're just hoping to to keep Oswestry looking cheerful."

For more about Oswestry in Bloom, head to www.facebook.com/oswestryinbloom/