Newtown is to become a "bee friendly" town.
Montgomeryshire Friends of the Earth group have launched a new project to make the town an official bee friendly town.
The Bee Friendly (Caru Gwenyn in Welsh) scheme in Wales asks communities, schools, organisations and others to take a few simple steps to encourage and protect bees and other pollinators and then apply for accreditation from the Welsh Government as an official bee friendly place.
The bee friendly scheme is the first such national pollinator accreditation scheme of its kind anywhere and is already attracting plenty of interest with many towns, schools and universities already working towards their Bee Friendly status.
Montgomeryshire Friends of the Earth spokesperson Mel Chandler said: “To gain Bee Friendly status, all a group has to do is to complete a set of actions to help pollinators from 4 different categories: food, habitat, community involvement and pesticides.
“Once accreditation has been granted, the organisation can officially call itself ‘Bee Friendly’ and use the logo, putting it on a website or maybe even a village or town sign.
“The overall idea is to get more and more people involved in helping to protect bees and other pollinators in a fun and engaging way.
“This is the first national scheme of its kind in the UK and probably the world so let’s get buzzing and make Newtown a Bee Friendly town.”
If you would like to get involved, please contact Bleddyn Lake at Bleddyn.lake@foe.co.uk or visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Montgomeryshire-Friends-of-the-Earth-1823364684654058/
For further information on the Bee Friendly scheme, visit the Wales Biodiversity Partnership website athttp://www.biodiversitywales.org.uk/Wales-Action-Plan-for-Pollinators
