ORGANISERS are hoping a new rooftoop garden will enhance the viewing pleasure for Bewdley Rowing Club’s regatta this weekend.

The River Severn-based club are braced for hundreds of rowers and even more spectators from across the country to descend on them for two days of high quality racing.

The new rooftop garden, which holds between 75 and 100 spectators above the club house, is Bewdley’s latest innovation and will provide an eagle-eyed vantage of the action for the event’s sponsors.

Regatta secretary Simon Collingridge also believes the space freed up by elevated post will help the event run more smoothly.

He said: “One of the new features of the regatta we are all excited about is the roof garden.

“It means our sponsors can watch from a high vantage point, moving them up from below.

“The garden will have a dramatic effect on how the event is run, because it frees up space in the club house for race control.

“We’re all looking forwards to the weekend, there’s going to be some terrific rowing action.

“Unlike our Pub and Club event earlier in the year, this is a serious competition and we’ll have crews from all of our local rivals as well others from around the country.”

Local rivals Stourport and Worcester and a host of other clubs are set to be out in force for one of the highlights of the regional rowing scene.

Up to 850 competitors are expected to be racing over the two days in women’s, men’s, open, mixed and veterans’ categories.

Collingridge said: “We were a little worried about the number of entries because some of the other regattas in the region had been a little low.

“We thought with money being so tight at the moment that many people wouldn’t to be able to race or pay the prohibitive price of travel.

“But it turns out that it has held up okay compared to others.

“We could have 850 racing both days, which is a great amount.”

The action starts 9am each morning and runs until late afternoon.