A group of householders helped keep the Halloween spirit alive yesterday with a display of homemade scarecrows across the neighbourhood.

Cobbs Hill Road in Warwick was decorated with about nine scarecrows to give children in the area a Covid-19 safe and festive alternative to trick-or-treating.

Karen Lavigne, who led the neighbourhood project, said: “We were thinking that, because the children don’t get to go trick-or-treating this year, it’d be nice for them to drive around like we used to do as children with Christmas lights.”

Ms Lavigne, 60, said that she got the idea earlier in the week after a friend from New Brunswick, Canada posted photographs of a similar display to social media.

She said that she asked her neighbours to build their own scarecrows and to be as creative as possible.

Ms Lavigne added that some scarecrows were dressed like witches, but others were more humorous, such as a scarecrow designed to look like a cyclist that crashed into a hedge.

She said: “There was a car that drove by earlier today that stopped in front of one of the scarecrows and a mother with her two children was pointing out and saying ’look at that’.”

Ms Lavigne admitted that she wanted to take the idea to Hamilton, but did not have enough time.

But she added that she hoped to keep the scarecrows up until Thanksgiving, although she admitted that some scarecrows might need to be replace with more seasonally-appropriate ones.

Ms Lavigne said: “Scarecrows are still fall-related, so I think they can still be a nice festive thing for Thanksgiving.”

She added: “This is definitely something that I’d like to start up next year and do on an even bigger scale.”