Amberol help to make Fife 'a pleasant place to stay, work or visit'

Fife Council is the third largest local authority in Scotland. Located in the country’s lowlands, the county of Fife has a strong sense of history and is a popular area for tourists. The county boundary includes several attractive mid-sized towns including Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes, Dunfermline and St Andrews, as well as large areas of rural landscape and 170kms of rugged coastline.

“The water retentive properties of the Amberol products ensure that they need fewer visits for maintenance”

Making the local environment attractive for residents, businesses and visitors is important to the council. Successful initiatives include the Beautiful Fife campaign in which towns and villages of all sizes are rewarded for reaching a minimum standard of environmental maintenance. The purpose of the campaign is to encourage communities to become involved in improving and caring for the places where they live. The more successful communities then progress to the national campaign and onward to participate in the Britain in Bloom Finals.

Fife Council also play their part, planting up and maintaining communal areas. The authority has been using Amberol’s self watering containers for over six years, having first encountered the company through their attendance at numerous awards ceremonies. With budget restrictions and maintenance costs becoming increasingly significant factors for local authorities when appointing suppliers, Amberol’s self watering planters seemed like the ideal solution, as Parks and Community Events Officer Keith Jackson explains.

“Our county has become widely known throughout Scotland and the UK for its attractive communities”

“The water retentive properties of Amberol’s planters ensure that they need less visits for maintenance, saving staff time as well as reducing our carbon footprint,” he comments. “The value of this is also being recognised by our smaller communities who receive grant aid from the council, some of which is used to purchase or hire Amberol products.”

Whilst Amberol offer a large range of self watering containers from the Harvester planter which is specially designed for edible plants, through to large tiered baskets, the most popular products include hanging baskets, barrier baskets and more recently, half barrels which are in increasing demand. The self watering containers are planted up and placed across the county, from the smallest village right through to the larger, more densely populated areas.

Three phrases that Fife Council uses to describe Amberol: Quality, User-friendly, Environmentally responsible

Keith finds that Amberol’s varied range of products offer a solution to suit all needs, and suggests that with the ever increasing pressure on local authorities’ budgets, the barrel planters in particular offer great value for money. He also believes that focusing on products for smaller communities could be beneficial as this may be where much floral enhancement takes place in the future.

“The company offers prompt delivery of a real value for money product”

As a family run company with a sense of history, Amberol pride themselves on offering personalised and friendly service. Keith commends the company on both its staff, and the quality of support they offer and would be happy to recommend them to other councils and organisations saying “Amberol’s representative is always helpful and attentive whilst the company offers prompt delivery of a real value for money product.”

Keith and the council rate the importance of creating an attractive environment, withthe community benefits that it brings, very highly. “The floral enhancement of the communities of Fife help to engender a strong sense of civic pride and belonging which makes these communities a pleasant place to live, work or visit,” he comments. “Whilst it is always difficult to find concrete evidence, we believe that anti-social behaviour appears to reduce and that the local economy also benefits from increased visitor numbers. In fact, many people comment favourably on the displays in the participating settlements of Beautiful Fife - our county has become widely known throughout Scotland and the UK for its attractive communities that residents and the authority work hard to maintain - with help from Amberol.”