Helston came together in a surge of community spirit last week for this year's Town Tidy.

Groups, businesses and individuals volunteered a few hours of their time to help clear the town of rubbish, cut back overgrown hedges and revamp unloved areas.

These included the town's boundary stones, various opes and alleyways, Coronation Park and the 'secret garden' at the top of the Trengrouse Way car park, which has become somewhat dilapidated.

Rosemary Sanders, chairman of Helston in Bloom, which has taken over the running of the campaign from Helston Business Improvement Partnership since its demise last month, described the area previously as "an awful mess" but with potential to be really nice.

Among the groups taking part were members of Helston WI, with Anne Barlow, Diane Lynes, Pat Vallender, Faith Jones, Lorraine Scott, Jill Hetherington and Sue Smith rolling up their sleeves to help the cause.

Rosemary Sanders from Britain in Bloom led the group preparing an area for planting around the Helston stone sign on the Penzance road.

Helston WI has now taken this area on to plant up and continue to look after, to provide a floral welcome to the town.

Other organisations included Helston Light and Life Church which tackled Trengrouse Way, Helston Beavers and Cubs who cleared Coronation Park and the area of the King George V playing field and scout hut, RNAS Culdrose, and Helston Tesco who sent staff members to work on the 'secret garden' at the top of the Trengrouse Way car park.

Individuals also came forward to do their bit, such as town businessman Scott Hesketh who worked with committee member Bob Sanders to power wash the ope from Coinagehall Street to Five Wells Lane, and 82-year-old Loveday Martin, one of the oldest volunteers.

In total, Cory took away more than 150 bags of rubbish collected over the course of the week.

Writing on their Facebook page, the Town Tidy team said: "All in all, a very successful Town Tidy event. Well done to all the volunteers involved."

Helston in Bloom plans to continue improving the look of the town through different planting and clearing schemes, before showing around judges from the Royal Horticultural Society for this year's South West in Bloom competition.

This year there will be three new areas to show the judges: near Helston Community Cottage Hospital, where the group hope to make a feature of the search and rescue helicopter behind the fence of RNAS Culdrose, the 'secret garden' and the well in Five Wells Lane.