Helping to take St Peter’s Britain in Bloom efforts to the next level are, from the left: Valerie Blake, John Woodward, Nigel Clarke and Marguerite Talmage. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0931743)

A COMMUNITY project expert from Northern Ireland is visiting Guernsey to explain how Britain in Bloom can help neighbourhoods and economies.

Valerie Blake, the development manager of Broughshane’s Britain in Bloom group, was talking to deputies and islanders following her village’s consistent success in the Royal Horticultural Society Competition.

But it took a roving Guernsey spy with a camera to instigate the visit, as she explained.

‘Nigel Clarke, of Queux Patio Plants Centre, was visiting Northern Ireland and decided to do a spying mission on Broughshane, came, took photos, and just left,’ she said.

St Peter’s competes in the section that Broughshane has won previously.

‘Afterwards, he apparently felt really guilty so he came to speak to me and was surprised when I was happy to provide lots of information.’

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