Planters for the Neubeckum entrance gate

Sparkasse Beckum-Wadersloh subsidised their own contribution. "The planters in the main street work really well and continue to generate a lot of positive feedback," says Thomas Dreier, Chairman of the trade association.

Whether a bucket should also be placed at the railway station caused some headaches beforehand. "On the one hand, we wanted to continue our colourful ribbon of buckets all the way to the train station so that visitors would be guided from our entrance gate with the buckets to the main street," explains Dreier. On the other hand, everyone involved realised that the bucket at the train station was more unprotected than the buckets in the main street. These are all assigned to shops and belong to them. "This means that everyone has an eye on their own bucket," says Dreier.

In the end, optimism and a different concept for the maintenance of the station bucket won out. While everyone takes care of the tubs in the main street themselves, the maintenance of the station tubs was outsourced to a local florist. The station rescuers also undertook to check the condition of the bucket every day and report any damage immediately. Annika Siebert and Serena Große-Kreul from Neubeckum town centre management were confident: "We'll just give it a try. If it doesn't work, we'll implement the bucket." And lo and behold, so far there have only been compliments for the beautiful bucket and no cases of damage. But the team is prepared for that too.

Another bucket for Optik Smolnik

A second bucket was ordered for Optik Smolnik in the same application for a disposition fund. After the first application, more were placed in front of the Neubeckum branch of Sparkasse Beckum-Wadersloh, so that the colourful ribbon now actually runs through the entire shopping street as planned.

"We're delighted that the development fund is producing such great projects in Neubeckum," say Siebert and Große-Kreul. "Our next application is already in preparation - we want to build the neighbourhood furniture designed by the students of Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Department of Design!"

The disposition fund is one of the projects implemented as part of the integrated urban development concept for Neubeckum. It can be used to subsidise projects with up to 6,000 euros. In each case, half of the funding must be realised independently. The projects must take place within the Neubeckum town centre area. An advisory board decides on the implementation.

Ideas are welcome

Anyone who also has a project idea for beautifying the town centre of Neubeckum should contact the town centre management. General information in advance and application forms can be found on the website of the town of Beckum at: www.beckum.de/foerderprogramme-innenstadt.

The Neubeckum town centre management team can be found on Thursdays from 10 am to 3 pm in the district living room at Hauptstraße 37.

You can reach both of them by e-mail at neubeckum@stadtraumkonzept.de or by telephone on 02525 939897-2 or 02525 939897-3.