Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival
The Stoke-on-Trent National Garden Festival was the second of Britain's national garden festivals. It was held in the city from 1 May to 26 October 1986, and was opened by the Queen. Preparation of the site involved the reclamation of land formerly occupied by the Shelton Bar steelworks (1830–1978), about two miles north-west of Stoke-on-Trent city centre, between Hanley and Burslem. British Steel's adjacent Shelton Bar steel rolling mill remained in use, finally closing in 2000. Reclaiming the site One of the leading political forces behind the festival idea was Councillor Cyril Finney who also pushed through the vital dual carriageway linking the A500 road with the festival site. The site reclamation cost £5 million, and the festival itself cost £18 million. The reclaimers of the festival site had to contend with highly contaminated and mine shafted land, and there is still debate among environmental professionals about how such a high-quality clean-up was accomplished in such a short time. A community employment scheme ran alongside the work. Around 300,000 trees were planted by small teams, some groups comprising ex-steelworkers. Not knowing how trees should be planted, they were planted in, what seemed at the time, disarray. It later transpired that