ITV's Love Your Garden star grows the celebrity line up at this year's show

SOUTHPORT Flower Show are delighted to announce ITV's Love Your Garden's Katie Rushworth will make an appearance at this year's show, on Sunday, 21 August 2022. Katie is an integral part of the successful presenting/gardening team from ITV's Love Your Garden.

Katie found her passion and skill for gardening when she 1st did garden maintenance locally in Yorkshire. She decided to turn this love affair with gardening into a career after studying horticulture at night School and working part time at her local garden centre.

Katie's enthusiasm for gardening comes across clearly for all to see on the ITV show. She has excellent plant knowledge and a great eye for design, function and beauty and this is conveyed to the watching audience with humour, expression and accessibility. She thrives on working outdoors in naturally beautiful habitats.

Katie will join a great line up of special guests this year. On Thursday the Flower Show will have BBC Gardeners' World Presenter Adam Frost. Friday will see the Show having Strictly's Janette and Aljaž.  Saturday will see The Drag Queen Gardener Daisy Desire and Hairy Biker Si King cooking live. Sunday will have children's TV presenter Justin Fletcher and Great British Menu finalist and Ready Steady Cook chef Ellis Barrie. More to be announced soon.

Alan Adams, General Manager of Southport Flower Show and Victoria Park said:- "We are looking forward to Katie coming to this year's show and sharing her knowledge and expertise with our visitors. In previous years we've had ITV's Love Your Garden presenters Alan Titchmarsh and David Domoney, at the show so to have Katie join us as well is fantastic. We know she will be a hit."

We are told that plans for this year's show are well underway and the combination of show gardens, floral displays, cookery demonstrations, arena entertainment, live music and much more makes Southport Flower Show a great day outdoors for the whole family this summer.

Southport Flower Show, sponsored by Home Bargains, is a registered charity (charity number 1000698) and the largest independent flower show in the country attracting over 55,000 visitors across 4 days. for more information, please visit:- SouthportFlowerShow.Co.UK.

Life Rooms expands into South Liverpool with opening of Lee Valley site

THE Life Rooms has listened to local feedback and is set to officially open a fourth centre across Merseyside tomorrow when Lee Valley Life Rooms will begin helping residents and the community of South Liverpool.

Having already established successful sites in:- Walton, Southport and Bootle, in addition to several other drop in sites across the Region. The Life Rooms are now opening a centre at:- Lee Valley Millennium Centre in the Belle Vale area of Liverpool. It will offer a range of classes and support around different social needs, including housing, finance, social isolation and access to food vouchers and banks.

The new Life Rooms, which opens on 19 May 2022 at 11am with partner organisations and community leaders present, has been established following feedback from existing service users, GPs, community mental health teams with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and other organisations in the area.

"We've been very conscious of the demand for The Life Rooms service to become more physically present within this area of Liverpool. Scarcely a week goes by without us receiving as request for such provision and I can completely understand why this is the case. It's unrealistic for most people living in South Liverpool to travel to Walton from areas such as Garston, Speke, Belle Vale due to travel distance, time and costs, and therefore support around social need is restricted. What we've done with all the Life Rooms sites we've established is try to be responsive to their local communities by working alongside people and organisations in the area to understand exactly what's needed and tailor our services to reflect that. Given what everyone has been through with the Pandemic and the social isolation involved with that and now the cost of living crisis, it's more important than ever that our Lee Valley Life Rooms is a safe space where individuals can access support that is meaningful and valuable to themselves, families and local communities." explained Michael Crilly, Mersey Care's Director of Social and Inclusion and Participation.

Since opening its 1st Life Rooms in Walton in 2016, Life Rooms sites have become focal points for their local communities and, after being forced to shut their doors during the Pandemic, developed an online learning platform that has been viewed over 30,000 times since March 2020.

After returning to face to face contacts in October 2021, over 11,000 people have visited their sites and over 6,000 people have attended face to face learning sessions in Liverpool and Sefton.