[Letter] Our shopping centre needs more colour!

Hanging baskets at Yate Shopping Centre.My wife and I do our shopping as often as we can at Yate town centre. There is a very good reason for this, as apart from the much better choice of shops, it’s the flowers – there are hanging baskets throughout the centre (see photo).

As you walk through the precinct, you are greeted by these huge hanging baskets and they grow into beautiful displays over the summer. With the many seats around, it’s nice to sit and admire them.

Every summer, Yate also brings the seaside to the centre, with a huge raised sandpit for the children, with deckchairs surrounding, for the parents and public. On the whole, you take more time with your shopping as it’s a pleasure to be there.

Now, as the tenor on the ‘telly’ sings, “go compare” – and what a contrast we have at the Willow Brook Centre. If you fancy a coffee, sat out here, what do you see? Apart from a few plant troughs with very little colour, just a mass of plain concrete. We have lampposts with brackets crying out for hanging baskets to give us some colour, but where are they?

No doubt if the council were approached on this, they would say there isn’t the money, which might be true as the money is already spent on our South Gloucestershire neighbours, Yate.

Mike Fox, Bradley Stoke

Editor’s note: I can confirm that both shopping centres are privately owned and neither receives any direct funding from our local councils for the provision of floral displays.

This letter originally appeared in the July 2016 edition of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine, delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to 9,500 homes in Bradley Stoke, Little Stoke and Stoke Lodge. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.

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