A COUNCILLOR has blasted Darwen’s floral displays as ‘disastrous’ and said they should be more like Blackburn’s.

Cllr Roy Davies has called for the town to have a gardener to care for the centre’s displays.

Blackburn with Darwen Council has a town centre gardener for the borough but it only care for displays in Blackburn.

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Cllr Davies said major improvements are needed to be made.

He said: “The issue is it’s like the difference between chalk and cheese when you look at flowers in Blackburn and flowers in Darwen.

“Blackburn contributes around £26,000 for its floral displays from the Business Improvement District, which Darwen doesn’t have.

“We have a precept which we use to organise events like Darwen Live and the Darwen Dance Festival, a bit like the BID collects council tax from business to make improvements in the town, but there isn’t a budget for this sort of thing.

“This year the displays have been a disaster.

“That’s partly because we do not have a town centre gardener in Darwen to keep an eye on them and water them.

“I think we need some kind of new arrangement so that in future we can follow Blackburn’s lead.”

The BID collects money from businesses to put back into the town.

The Darwen Town Centre Partnership Board (DTCPB) is looking at developing something similar to the BID in the future.

Cllr Phil Riley, executive member for regeneration on the borough council, said: “I have been discussing with the DTCPB about the possibility of getting businesses to engage in something which would see them pay monies that would be used to improve how the town looks.

“If this can be done I’m sure that we could look at improving the floral displays in Darwen using this.

“It’s a bit complicated because we can’t actually have a BID in Darwen due to some technicalities.

“However there’s no reason why we can’t have something to that effect.

“We are currently facing a lot of cuts so we are not looking at adding anymore employees, such as a gardener for Darwen.

“Having said that I hope this can be sorted by getting businesses to engage and contribute money to the town.”