SAFFRON Walden Town Team plans to make a blooming great impression on visitors this summer – by festooning the town’s shops with scores of beautiful hanging baskets.

The floral campaign is the Town Team’s first initiative since it formed earlier this year with the intention of supporting traders through the current hard economic times.

It is hoped that by using petal power to impress residents and visitors to the town it will restore the sweet smell of success to Walden’s historic market streets.

The Town Team has ordered a large consignment of summer and winter hanging basket arrangements which it will provide to any trader who wants them.

Town Team joint chairman Nicola Slade, who runs Mocha in Central Arcade, said: “We wanted to come up with something that made a real visual impact to announce what we’re about.

“Whenever individual traders have displayed hanging baskets in the past they have always been appreciated, so we thought ‘Why not festoon the town with beautiful flowers?’

Dozens of businesses in the town have already signed up to the scheme saying they’ll display the baskets outside their shops. It is hoped that by doing so they’ll help transform the streets in a riot of colour.

“It’s only a relatively small step but it will make a fantastic visual impact and it’s sure to go down well with regular shoppers and new visitors to Saffron Walden,” said Mrs Slade.

Co-chairman Petra Slack, who runs Petrus Designs, said: “Everyone on the team agreed the town would benefit from hanging baskets.

“The cost of the baskets is being met from some of the funding which has been made available to us by Uttlesford District Council and Saffron Walden Town Council.

“We felt they would make an obvious statement of intent on our behalf but also make the town look beautiful into the bargain.”

Suppliers will provide two sets of baskets – one for the summer and one for the winter – and the cost of maintaining them will be included in the deal that the Town Team has struck with them.

Organisers hope that the number of traders taking part in the project will enable them to recover their costs.

“The cost is minimal but the results will hopefully be spectacular,” said Mrs Slack. “We might even be able to use the scheme as a springboard to entering the town for Anglia in Bloom!”