CHEPSTOW’S Riverside Gardens received a makeover by courtesy of 25 volunteers who spent a hard-working day clearing borders, pruning trees and shrubs and planting over 500 perennial plants.

Chepstow Town Council has agreed to take over the maintenance of the gardens as part of the transfer of services from Monmouthshire county council necessitated by government budget cuts.

 "The day was a great success, everyone was enthusiastic and worked as a team even though many of them have never met before, they completed the project by 4pm,” said St Mary’s ward town councillor Ned Heywood who initiated the project.

“The gardening group plan another working day this year, and then will prune and weed on a couple of days in the spring. With this level of enthusiasm in the years to come the gardens will almost certainly be much better maintained than in the past few years since the budget cuts started.

"Great thanks to all the volunteers including the landscape architect Sam Brown who coordinated the work. We even had 4 people who came all the way from Newport to work for the day in Chepstow to give thanks for the times they had spent in our Riverbank Gardens enjoying the great music of bands on the bandstand."