LIVING-ROOFED bus shelters are making a scheduled stop in Tavistock.

The town council, in partnership with Launceston firm Fernbank Advertising, is providing the new shelters with mini-gardens on top this month.

The shelters have started appearing in the town centre and their roofs will be planted in the next few weeks.

The roofs will be planted with sedums, lit by solar power and use a dusk-til-dawn light sensor. Sedums are tolerant of dry windswept conditions in shallow soils.

Environmental gardeners have already welcomed the garden roof as yet another ‘green’ initiative to support the council’s policy of sustainability and environmental commitment. The idea is for the gardens in the sky to help capture carbon emissions from traffic, encourage insect life and reduce run-off and flooding.

Tavistock Community Gardening welcomed their introduction this spring as another way of attracting pollinating insects into a town centre environment and adding to the existing wildlife corridors being created across the town.

Other managed bee and butterfly friendly areas are the hay meadow in the green burial ground in Plymouth Road Cemetery, Dolvin Road Cemetery, Benson’s Meadows, Market Road river bank and Bannawell Park and Plantations pocket park next to Abbey Bridge.