Aberdeen Communities Together (ACT)

In 2024, as well as being the overall winner of Beautiful Scotland, Aberdeen was recognised with the following Beautiful Scotland discretionary awards: 1. the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society Award, and 2. the VisitScotland Award for Tourism.

Aberdeen Communities Together (ACT) is an umbrella for valuable work in bringing together individuals, groups, volunteers and organisations with a shared goal of maintaining and improving Aberdeen’s award-winning parks and green spaces.

The Council’s team works tirelessly with more than 150 community partners and 1,000s of volunteers for the benefit of the city, with the approach fostering a new wave of civic pride.

The formation of ACT has opened access to external funding, leveraged income through sponsorship and improved the experience of volunteers, residents, and staff.

Aberdeen Communities Together was one of four of our Beautiful Scotland groups who represented Scotland in the 2023 RHS Britain in Bloom UK finals. The group were recognised with a Gold medal certificate, won the City category and were recognised with a Certificate of Achievement for the Horticultural Excellence Award.

In 2022, Aberdeen Communities Together were joint winners (with East Haven Together) of the overall Beautiful Scotland Rosebowl!

In 2022, Aberdeen City Council also won the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society Award:  The local authority is passionate about horticulture and has a very proud history and tradition of horticultural excellence dating back over 50 years. It has a wide range of beautiful parks, gardens, and green spaces. The staff, Friends groups and volunteers involved, live and breathe their green spaces, and take real pride in maintaining, showing off and celebrating the wonderful spaces! The team continue to deliver traditional high-quality horticulture and floral displays with a mix of seasonal bedding and permanent perennial planting. In recent years, the team has moved towards managing more parks and green spaces as spaces for nature, planting more pollinator friendly varieties to add to the biodiversity value of the sites. The team has reduced grass cutting to allow grasses and wildflowers to thrive and demonstrate the beauty of these plants. This adds to the variety of planting included in the space but also adds a new learning to the team’s horticulture.

In 2018, Aberdeen Communities Together was one of five groups representing Scotland in the RHS Britain in Bloom UK finals. The group was presented with a Gold medal certificate and also won the City category. The group was also winners of the Growing Communities Discretionary Award.