Press Archive

Avonside Nominees for National Competition Revealed

The villages that will represent Avonside in the 2005 Calor Village of the Year^® competition for England have been revealed.

The competition judges communities on six aspects of rural village life with categories in Building Community Life, Business, Young People, Older People, Environment and, judged separately, Information Communication Technology (ICT). More than 40 villages across England will be competing in the competition, which has a total prize fund of £36,000 and a top prize of £6,000.

The North Somerset village of Long Ashton will represent Avonside in the main competition, with Chew Magna competing in the ICT section. They have been nominated to enter the competition by the Avonside branch of the CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) following their involvement in the 2005 Avonside Village of the Year competition which is sponsored by Calor – the UK’s leading supplier of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas). Long Ashton and Chew Magna will be competing in the West England region of the national competition against villages from Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Worcestershire.

County competition organisers are confident that Long Ashton and Chew Magna have got what it takes to do well at national level: “We have selected both villages to go through to the next stage of the competition because they really impressed the county competition judges. Long Ashton is a vibrant village with an excellent community spirit. It has a great range of activities going on for all ages and, if it has the same effect on the Calor Village of the Year^® for England judges as it did on our judges, should do very well. Chew Magna has an excellent village website which is both informative and user friendly, and the way ICT is used throughout the community to the benefit of all residents is very impressive. We would like to wish both villages the best of luck and look forward to seeing how they’ve got on at the final awards event for the national competition which is being held on Tuesday 6th December.”

The full results of the 2005 Avonside Village of the Year competition will be announced later on in September and a presentation event for the successful communities is being held on 26th November at the Rangeworthy King George V Memorial Hall. Prizes are available for the best overall large village (population between 1,500 and 5,000), the best overall small village (population under 1,500), the best village in the past winners’ section, and overall small and large district winners. There are also prizes available in each category with £500 prize money available this year specifically for the Building Community Life category. This is thanks to competition support from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and will be split amongst large and small winning villages in the Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire areas.

For further information regarding the Avonside Village of the Year competition, please contact Brian Challis at info@calorvillageoftheyear.org, telephone 01454 228 519.

Further press information from: Emma Flinn, Flent PR Ltd
tel: 01223 845781 (direct) / 0161 817 4200 (main office)
email: emma.flinn@connectpoint.co.uk