THE Ulverston in Bloom gardening festival is to be replaced with a greener alternative.

Organisers involved with the festival, which ran until last year, said they had decided to alter the annual competition to better reflect the town’s changing political priorities - in particular, after Ulverston Town Council declared a climate emergency last year.

Kim Farr, the Ulverston in Bloom chair, said: “We wanted to give the competition a different focus.

“We’re looking to encourage people to think about gardening in a different way.

“For instance, there are over 300 allotments in Ulverston.

“Instead of allotment owners competing to have the biggest leek, we would be looking to reward gardeners who can demonstrate that they are working with nature and not against it. One way could be, for example, not using pesticides.”