CANFORD Cliffs residents are planning to create a 'memory garden' in which people can sit and reflect on lost loved ones.

The garden would take the form of a small stone circle filled with evergreen shrubs such as lavender, rosemary and camellias, based in the small Pocket Park area in Bessborough Road, by the path down to the cliff.

Canford Cliffs Land Society need between £8,000 and £12,000 to make their vision a reality, and have applied to the Tesco 'Bags of Help' community fund for a grant.

Society secretary Cecilia Grimston said they had come up with the idea for the park three years ago.

"It was much too expensive at the time so we left it," she said.

"But recently we heard about Tesco giving grants for community gardens, and after getting permission from the council we put an application together.

"Our original plan was for the garden to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme this year, but there have been so many battles in which people lost their lives and we decided to change it to a 'memory garden' so people can remember lost loved ones."

Pocket Park was given to the council for community use by the Land Society in 1925. A few years ago it was overgrown but Mrs Grimston managed the project to clear the site in 2011 and it is now a popular through route with walkers and cyclists.

The planned garden would have three benches arranged in a horseshoe shape, and the group hope to get local schoolchildren involved in planting the shrubs, as well as bluebells and daffodils.

"We have got an idea of what we want, now we are just waiting to see if we can get the money," said Mrs Grimston.

"If we do we want to get started straight away."

The First World War Battle of the Somme ran from July 1 to November 18, 1916, and left more than a million people killed or injured.

A national commemorative event is due to take place on Friday, July 1, at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Thiepval Memorial in France.