VOLUNTEERS who maintain a nature reserve in North Somerset have celebrated 20 years of dedicated work.

VOLUNTEERS who maintain a nature reserve in North Somerset have celebrated 20 years of dedicated work.

St George’s Flowerbank near Portbury and Easton-in-Gordano boasts a huge number of wildflower species and has been worked on since 1990 to encourage more to flourish.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of these efforts, a new interpretation board has been put up to give details about the verge, which runs along the A369 Martcombe Road.

Volunteers working on the area are led by Bob Buck, who was the first to recognise the importance of roadside verges to wildlife and local people.

His and other people’s work has included planting flowers and trees, managing the habitat and monitoring and recording the species there.

Thanks to this, in 2007 Natural England dedicated St George’s Flower Bank as a local nature reserve.