CHILDREN at a Finchampstead school have helped name four new roads and five apartment blocks in Wokingham.
As part of Wokingham Borough Council’s Gorse Ride affordable housing regeneration, residents chose the theme ‘flowers’, which was put forward by Class 6CB at Gorse Ride Junior School.
Mayor Cllr Caroline Smith paid the class a surprise visit to announce the good news, and was joined by staff from Wates Residential, the contractor for the development.
Cllr Smith said: “Local school children have worked hard and have thought of many inspiring theme suggestions for the Gorse Ride road naming competition.
“It is a great pleasure to announce Class 6CB at Gorse Ride Junior School as the overall winners. Their wonderful floral ideas captured the community’s imagination as being the kind of names they wanted to see in the regenerated community.
“Well done to everyone involved, I have enjoyed meeting you all and congratulations to our winners.”
The mayor presented the class’ pupils with shopping vouchers and congratulatory certificates, which were provided by Wates.
In an attempt to involve the community, the council challenged schools to submit ideas for themes in a road naming competition.
The themes needed to link to the Finchampstead, its landmarks or concepts which were important to young people such as climate emergency.
A community panel shortlisted the ideas down to three and residents of Gorse Ride were invited to vote for their favourite theme. Flowers proved the most popular choice, receiving 57% of the vote.
The suggestion included species such as buttercup, sunflower, iris and foxglove.
Eileen Rogers, executive headteacher at Gorse Ride Junior School, said: “With values being at the heart of everything we do at Gorse Ride Schools, including ‘belonging’ and ‘responsibility’, we knew that our children would love the opportunity to be involved in supporting their local community.
“We were very impressed with their range of imaginative ideas and thrilled to be chosen as the winners. As a school, we are so proud that our children can leave a positive lasting legacy in their local area and they are looking forward to spotting their chosen road names when they are completed.”
Now that ‘flowers’ has been chosen as the theme for the future road names at Gorse Ride, the council will start the process of discussing the ideas with Royal Mail before agreeing a final list of road and apartment names for the scheme.
