Colourful welcome in the bag!

That’s the objective in St Annes thanks to an innovative scheme by the town’s In Bloom group.

Dozens of discarded golf bags have been kitted out to contains plants and placed at intervals along the main pedestrian route from the town centre to the Royal Lytham and St Annes golf course, which hosts the Ricoh Women’s British Open from next Thursday.

The bags have been positioned against railings and lamp posts along St Andrew’s Road South to the main course entrance off St Thomas Road - and officials of St Annes In Bloom have been delighted with the public response to the colourful scheme.

All the bags have donated by local residents and several residents and business owners along the route have come forward to keep an eye on the bags and water them.

As well as celebrating the golf tournament, it was hoped the bags would impress the North West In Bloom judges as they came to town this week.

Coun Tony Ford of St Annes In Bloom said: “Since we put the bags into position we’ve had requests for similar golf bags to be placed elsewhere in the town and we have had a great reaction generally.

“As well as adding colour to town, it’s a great example of recycling. The bags were on their way to landfill, the plastic pots which have ben put inside them to house the plants were being thrown away and even some of the compost used is from green recycling schemes.”

Coun Cheryl Little, chairman of Fylde Council’s tourism and leisure committee, said: “The bags look wonderful.”