The postponed 2024/25 MTC Civic Awards were presented at The Venue, St. George’s Social Club on 6.11.25. With many thanks to everyone involved in organising this event celebrating and reminding us of the inspiring community kindness that surrounds us every day in Maghull, we enjoyed every minute (see photos!).

The Well-Being Award was won by Morrisons who have supplied discounted food to Maghull Town Council’s Cosy Club, and their Christmas hamper initiatives, and supported the Maghull food pantry. Whilst giving raffle prizes for fundraising and allowing charities to fundraise in their store on a regular basis. Which has been led in 2024 by their super friendly and caring employee Bernice Turner in her role as Community Champion, and deservedly celebrated last month.

However, we would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the FOMD as unsuccessful nominees, who since the inception in 2020 have worked day and night undertaking kind, inspiring and selfless charitable work to arguably reach a pinnacle by winning the UK 2025 RHS/BBC One Show Growing Together Community Garden Award for Maghull’s largest ever health and wellness NHS green transformation project. Which has surprisingly drawn national media attention to Maghull and considerable pride for the volunteers and residents of Maghull, but most importantly countless health and wellness benefits throughout the engagement and outcomes. So often, their work has been attributed to the town or borough council or the wonderful but separate Maghull in Bloom. It is hard to imagine how they could ever improve upon their achievements, to receive local civic recognition. We were absolutely delighted and honoured to receive the attached letter from MTC Mayor (Cllr Ross Ferguson) and the Council Leader (Cllr Chloe Parker) and a lovely telephone message from Bill Esterson (MP).

Although the civic awards were aligned to the successful BBC ‘Make a Difference’ award titles, due to limited nominations MTC have been striving to imaginatively make the Civic awards more competitive by using more generic civic titles and losing the ‘local business’ and ‘environmental’ awards, hence could we now lose the sports award because of only one nominee. It has also resulted in arguably in an uneven playing surface where volunteers are pitched against businesses.

Wellbeing Award: awarded to a person, business or organisation for contributing to the well-being of residents of Maghull (mental, physical or general well-being).

Please state in no more than 200 words details for which you consider that the nominee should receive a Civic Award.

Nomination:

FOMD Volunteers Have Provided Unprecedented Health and Wellness Activities and Achievements.

FOMD volunteers are an incredibly kind, selfless, unsung tirelessly hard-working group of community volunteers who I have had the immense privilege of working alongside and give countless hours each week over the last four years, to improve the health and wellness of the whole community and in particular our community’s most vulnerable. In addition, to the FOMD volunteering most of them are unbelievably involved in a separate charitable community works.

In recent years the group has been involved in community environmental and social work involving:

  • Parkbourn – transforming an area with 20 years of antisocial behaviour into a valued green oasis.
  • Stafford Moreton Way – raising £6000 to transform a jungle in Maghull’s highest footfall area into an eco-educational green space.
  • Woodend – raising over £60,000 and transforming a bland Maghull entrance into a safe, accessible, green haven considered one of the best green spaces in Maghull and representing a beautiful gateway welcome.
  • Planted over 16,000 trees in parks, roads and schools, to benefit humans and wildlife by promoting wellness, reducing pollution whilst promoting, enhancing and inspiring biodiversity.
  • Supporting Maghull’s most vulnerable residents by providing two years of funding for the Cosy Club (£7000) and digital equipment and services (£6000) to enable the Advice Centre to function.

Please describe in no more than 200 words the benefits resulting from the nominee’s service to a particular field, area, group or community.

Over the last year, FOMD have partnered with the NHS landowners to undertake Maghull’s Largest Ever Green – (1) Cleanup, (2) investment and (3) planting programme to create a Health and Wellness Haven next to Maghull’s health centre. In the process, they have engaged with all age groups, with vulnerabilities and needs related to loneliness, autism, bereavement to provide personal restoration. Whilst creating a tranquil, reflective, mindful community green space to be used by NHS patients, staff, and the wider community that will be a fitting living legacy for late Dr Rowland’s continued compassion for the residents of Maghull.

This has been achieved through:

  • Improving and maintaining all the above projects by removing over 50 agricultural bags of vegetation from every individual tree and borders of project areas.
  • Rowlands NHS Wellness Dell. FOMD have partnered with the NHS landowners by meticulously planning the creation of a specific health and wellness haven for the community and wildlife. Throughout the whole year they have cleared the dangerously polluted, inaccessible site at the heart of Maghull’s busy town centre by removing 300 bin bags of litter and 25 tons of debris from 30 years of neglect representing Maghull’s biggest ever cleanup. They then obtained an unprecedented £80,000 worth of NHS health and wellness grant funding to install accessible hard and soft landscaping features to benefit the whole community, Medical Centre staff, patients and engaging social prescriber referrals with a wide variety of needs. The final stage now involves a huge programme of woodland planting for the benefit of everyone, in which they have successfully obtained: a competitive £8000 national grant from Morrisons to create two water features (evidenced by meta-research as best practice for a sense of wellness), £1500 Co-op grant for a neuro diversity awareness archway installation and several other grants awaiting decisions to complete this beneficial final stage.

Letter of Support from Lynne Fairclough BEM (National & Local Community Legend).

To Whom it May Concern,

I am writing to support this nomination as I believe that the people who have worked tirelessly from FOMD have made a considerable change to areas around Maghull.  With their long term goals that at first most probably seemed impossible.  They had a vision on how to improve a targeted area, whether Bobby’s Wood, Parkbourn tea cup display, Rowlands Dell etc. Each envisaged an improvement, not just aesthetically, but a haven for wildlife allowed to flourish. Helping to change an area from degraded to beautiful, through calmness, to tranquility for the community.  Whilst at the same time a sense of wellbeing, being a part of creating something good for the Community, making new friendships, being out in the fresh air, gave the volunteers a contentment not surpassed.

I really appreciate all that has been achieved so far and I am sure more will be in the planning stages for years ahead, to help achieve the goal to ensure Maghull is a better place to live in for all, humans and animals, whether wild or tame.

An extremely well-deserved group of individuals who make this group what it is.  Truly a community of people helping to build up the community. Each individual deserves to be recognized and thanked.

To use my strapline within Maghull Homewatch, if neighbour looks after neighbour, then community looks after community. FOMD is truly grasping this ethos in its fullness.

Thank you FOMD for being who you are.

Kind regards,

Lynne Fairclough BEM,

Chair, Maghull Homewatch Association