Big Local invested in planters to brighten up North Promenade, which have for many years contained Palm Trees to come out year after year
When? Original planters 2018. Palm trees since 2020
Partners: North East Lincolnshire Council. North Promenade traders. Cleethorpes in Bloom.
Since 2018, Big Local North Cleethorpes has invested in some seasonal planters along North Promenade. The aim has always been to brighten up the prom with some planting, but also to try and encourage visitors to venture further up North Promenade to visit the businesses there.
In 2018 and 2019 Big Local worked with the North Prom businesses to select locations and those businesses invested a small amount of money each to pay for half of the overall costs of the planters. Big Local then matched the remainder of the costs. Both years those planters were filled with attractive bedding plants. In total there were 26 planter tubs.
The 2020 season was completely different with coronavirus essentially shutting the prom business down for most of the season. So Big Local took a different approach for 2020 with the planters.
In 2020 we purchased eight large pots each containing a palm tree. The palm trees will be lower maintenance but will also now return season after season to brighten up the prom and provide an interesting feature for the area.
In fact the trees planted in 2020 remain in 2025 and have seen through five seasons on Cleethorpes front.
The project has worked well thanks to support and effort from various people. Firstly local resident and committee member Alan Johnson who made the whole project happen. Next, the North Prom businesses who invested half of the funding in the first two years.
We’re also grateful to ladies from Cleethorpes in Bloom who helped support the planters in the first two season – weeding, watering and cleaning the planters when filled with bedding plants. This is when we also realised that bedding plants made the planters effort intensive. Simply working around 26 planters and watering them was a huge task in itself. The move to a smaller number of Palm tree planters meant that the trees were essentially self-managing and our volunteers (thanks Steve) were just able to remove rubbish and keep the pots fairly presentable.
Finally a big thank you to the environmental team at North East Lincolnshire Council who put the planters out each year and then take them away to overwinter them. Thanks Earling and your team.
