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An innovative environmental project in Bootle is set to create 80 new sustainable street gardens in the town.

The Taking Root in Bootle community gardening network has established the Community Growing Circle project to link at-home food growing by local households with community composting facilities in the area to create a circular green loop.

The project has been made possible by a grant from the Liverpool City Region Community Environment Fund, established last year by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram to improve the environment of the region and promote community involvement in green projects.

Each household taking part in the project will receive a starter kit for growing in front of terraced homes, a water butt and a caddie for collecting and transporting raw food waste to the new community compost bins in South Park and North Park.

Organisers say that adding 80 mini growing sites along terraced house fronts will increase biodiversity, support a variety of invertebrate wildlife, provide a mix of fruit and vegetable flowers for pollinators and substantially increase resting points for bees and other insects.

More information about the scheme is available here.

Sefton Council supports many community groups like Taking Root, who regularly carry out clean ups across Sefton’s outdoor spaces and help to develop community areas in parks and greenspaces, as well as more urban areas.

In a joint statement, the Local Authority Leaders, Acting Mayor of Liverpool, and Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, said:

“The Prime Minister has now set out a timetable for the whole country to return to something approaching normality again. After the huge sacrifices of the last 12 months, and we are sure that everyone will breathe a huge sigh of relief that light is beginning to appear at the end of a very dark tunnel.

“However, the threat from Coronavirus remains very real and we still have many weeks of restrictions ahead of us, so everyone should continue to stay home, protect the NHS and save lives.

“Given the need for continued restrictions it is vital that the government come forward with a further package of financial support including further help for businesses that will be forced to remain closed for some months, additional support for workers who need to self-isolate, and a scheme to help the three million self-employed who have been excluded from any form of help at all for the past year.”

The surge testing operation to understand the spread of a South African variant of Covid-19 in Southport has now been completed.  Door to door testing in Dukes and Cambridge wards was paused over the weekend, and today (Monday 22/02/21) Sefton Council have received confirmation that no further testing will be carried out at the mobile testing unit at the Southport Theatre and Convention Centre after it closes tonight at 6.30pm.

The number of tests from the mobile unit and the home testing combined mean that sufficient testing has taken place in this area.

Initial numbers from the operation, which is aimed at understanding any community spread of a variant of COVID-19 known as SARS-CoV-2 (or VOC-202012/02) which originated in South Africa, show around 89% of the tests delivered have been completed and collected.

Sefton’s Executive Director, Andrea Watts, said

“Our teams have visited over 17,000 addresses in the last 3 weeks delivering home testing kits; which has been no mean feat.

“The residents in the areas tested rightly deserve a huge thank you for being so willing to support us in this important task and help Government scientists learn more about this disease.

“Positive COVID-19 tests from our targeted testing will be sent for genomic sequencing. This will help us to understand the spread of COVID-19 variants locally.

“The community have been magnificent with people being so supportive on the doorstep and wanting to do whatever they can to help our efforts.

“Everyone in all of our communities should continue to follow the national lockdown restrictions in order to protect our most vulnerable.”

Although the targeted testing in Southport is complete, residents can still have a Covid-19 test at Splashworld (if no symptoms) or can book a test at Southport Town Hall if they do have symptoms.

Alternatively, they can call 119 and request for a home testing kit to be delivered.