A monthly magazine in Worthing is celebrating a blooming success after its campaign to plant flowers along the seafront won a commendation and £2,000 of further funding.

The Worthing Journal rallied readers into planting hundreds of flowers in time for the summer after becoming appalled at the council’s neglect of the promenade displays.

However, after volunteer planters descended on the seafront to dig out weeds for the new blooms, they were threatened with arrest for criminal damage by Worthing Borough Council officers.

But their efforts at restoring the promenade were eventually rewarded when the display went on to win a commendation from South and South East in Bloom.

Journal editor Paul Holden said:  “It was an incredible community effort from people who were dismayed at the deterioration of the seafront. Readers turned up in droves on a Sunday morning to plant the beds.

“I believe the seafront is the key to Worthing’s continued prosperity and it must be maintained to the highest standard so visitors don’t go elsewhere,” he added.

Readers came out in their droves to help the campaign