Press Archive

Hertfordshire Village of the Year Results Announced

The results of the 2005 Hertfordshire Village of the Year competition have been announced. The winners were honoured at an Awards Evening which took place on Thursday 30th June at the Van Hage Centre, Great Amwell.

The winning villages are as follows -

Village of the Year West and overall winner

Potten End

Village of the Year East

Brickendon Liberty

Small Village of the Year

Preston

Building Community Life category winner

Barkway

Most Improved Community Life winner

Furneux Pelham

Best Community Project

Redbourn

Business category winner

Woolmer Green

Young People category winner

Flamstead

Older People category winner

Braughing

Environment category winner

Ickleford

Information Communication Technology (ICT) category winner

Redbourn

Winner of the Dorothy Abel Smith Award for Young People:

Jodie Bryant of Flamstead

Winner of the Peterkin (formerly Judges’ Special) Award:

Colin Reedman of Wilstone

The competition is sponsored by Calor, the UK’s leading supplier of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), with additional support from Hertfordshire County Council and the Hertfordshire Mercury. Also, thanks to competition support from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) this year, there is an extra £500 prize money which is going to the winners in the Building Community Life, Most Improved Community Life and Best Community Project sections of the competition as well to the winners of the Dorothy Abel Smith and Peterkin Awards.

Judge Alan Woollaston commented: “Once again the judges faced a difficult task in determining the category and overall winners. The enthusiasm shown by every village entering the competition has been quite outstanding, and this applies to the smaller as well as the larger villages. This year we welcome the additional competition support from Defra through support of the Building Community Life section of the competition. The judges found this a difficult area to judge because of the high standard of the entries and we would like to congratulate all the villages for demonstrating to us through this category just what vibrant and thriving communities they are.”

Potten End, as the overall winner of the competition, and Redbourn, as the ICT category winner, will now go forward to represent the county in the prestigious national English Calor Village of the Year^® competition, with the opportunity of following in the footsteps of Hunsdon and Brookmans Park last year and gaining recognition at national level as well as a share in the £36,000 prize fund. They will be competing in the East England region of the competition against villages from Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Further presentations to the Villages of the Year for East and West Hertfordshire will take place in the winning communities on Saturday 23rd July when the category winners will also be presented with framed Calor certificates.

For further information, please contact Jo Simson on 01438 717587, email office@cpreherts.org.uk or visit the CPRE - The Hertfordshire Society website (www.cpreherts.org.uk).

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