A Rawdon councillor is part of an award winning team who have taken silver at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Councillor Phil Gomersall and five other volunteers won their award with a Techno Allotment Garden.

As well as impressing the judges, the creation also made its mark on the High Commissioner for the Bahamas who has collected ideas from it to apply to his own garden back home.

Coun Gomersall and his team, from the Leeds and District Allotment Gardeners Federation, have already enjoyed local successes and began planning for the Chelsea show in October last year. He said the plants needed a lot of nurturing as no artificial means were applied in growing them. Moving the plants to Chelsea also took a great deal of organisation.

“The team were overjoyed and extremely proud when awarded a silver medal for their first attempt at creating a garden in the Discovery section of the Chelsea Flower Show and even more so considering they were competing with professionally backed organisations,” he said.

He said they hoped the garden would create a good image of allotments nationwide and even abroad and also encourage others to grow their own vegetables. He added: “Another aspect of the garden was to demonstrate what technical and other innovations could be created quite cheaply to assist with the growing of vegetables and make the vegetable garden a more efficient and very attractive place.

“There were so many good and positive comments about the garden from so many people from all walks of life and so many different countries, it was most gratifying and made all the hard work in creating the garden worthwhile.”