Grand Opening – Mountford Garden Makeover

After months of hard work following our successful campaign to win The People’s Millions prize, we are delighted to reveal our Mountford Makeover sensory garden!

At the Grand Opening of our sensory garden at Mountford last Friday, 17 June 2016, we enjoyed live music and bubbly while Debbie Wilshire, Non-Executive Director, cut the red ribbon and made it official.

Since winning the runner up People’s Millions prize of £50,000 in November 2014, staff at Mountford have worked really hard to create the perfect sensory garden for our residents. They have put in an amazing amount of effort and the results truly speak for themselves.

It was wonderful to see the ribbon finally cut and the garden officially opened.

Mountford was originally a residential home with a garden more suited to more able-bodied residents and therefore not very accessible for people in wheelchairs. The garden project started with Roy Scott, a gentleman who lived at Mountford, having a conversation with Annie Scott, our nurse at Mountford, where they agreed it would be a great idea to obtain a greenhouse for the home.

Annie thought, why stop there? Why not create a purpose-built sensory garden and tea room too?

To fund the project, Annie applied to the People’s Millions Lottery. Staff at Mountford were then informed that their garden makeover proposal was one of six worthy causes shortlisted for the competition on ITV West Country and they entered a head-to-head race for phone votes.

After weeks of campaign awareness and an emotional rollercoaster ride, Mountford won the runner up prize of £50,000, having achieved the most phone votes throughout the week.

The result is an absolute delight.

Designed by MC Landscaping, our new sensory garden at Mountford is a beautiful, calming and creative space that residents can enjoy with their relatives and friends.

Staff, residents and families were all involved in making sure the garden suited Mountford’s needs and our Maintenance team built in a wheelchair access ramp, ensuring that the space could be enjoyed by people of all physical and mental abilities.

Our thanks go to The People’s Millions for awarding us the funding, MC Landscaping for the design, Annie Scott and the Mountford team for winning The People’s Millions prize and making this happen, our Maintenance team for all their hard work and to Debbie Wilshire for opening the garden on Friday and making it official.

Sadly Roy Scott passed away last year but he was able to celebrate Mountford being awarded the funding to start the garden. If we could thank him again for his input we would. The greenhouse will always be Roy’s in the eyes of our staff at Mountford.

The Tea Room is also proving to be very popular – it is a lovely space where residents and families can go for a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a chinwag.

We look forward to having lots of fun in our new garden over the summer and we welcome you to come and join us and explore our new sensory garden experience.

To view the video taken by ITV West Country, please click here.