Press Archive

16 Villages in line for title of Hertfordshire Village of the Year 2005

A total of 16 villages are in line to win the prestigious title of Hertfordshire Village of the Year for 2005.

Preliminary assessment of the written submissions has already taken place, with judges’ visits to follow between 7th and 17th June, and competition organiser on behalf of CPRE – The Hertfordshire Society, Jo Simson, is confident that standards are extremely high. She commented: “It looks like the competition’s going to be very close. We are used to high standards from Hertfordshire’s villages, but I think our judges are going to have a particularly difficult time choosing the winners this year.”

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. The competition judges communities on six aspects of village life with categories in Building Community Life, Business, Young People, Older People, the Environment and (judged separately) Information Communication Technology (ICT).

Entering villages are: Barkway, Braughing, Brickendon, Buckland, Flamstead, Furneux Pelham, Hertford Heath, Ickleford, Little Berkhamsted, Pirton, Potten End, Preston, Redbourn, Widford, Wilstone and Woolmer Green. Of these, three have entered for the first time (Barkway, Hertford Heath and Little Berkhamsted).

Jo Simson added: “Thanks to competition support from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) this year, we have an extra £500 prize money to distribute to successful villages in the Building Community Life section of the competition. This includes £50 for both the Dorothy Abel Smith Award for young person(s) who have made an outstanding contribution to village life, which is new for 2005, and the Margaret Peterkin Award for individuals / organisations making an outstanding contribution to the community. The judges are particularly looking forward to selecting the winners for these two awards. In fact, the mood is generally upbeat and positive. Our judges are enthusiastic and committed and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their hard work.”

Following on from this competition, one village will have the opportunity to go forward and gain recognition at national level by following in the footsteps of Hunsdon in 2004, or Brookmans Park in the ICT category, in the English Calor Village of the Year^® competition, which this year has a prize fund of over £36,000 and a top prize of £6,000.

The winning villages will be announced on 30th June at the Van Hage Centre, Great Amwell and presentations to the Villages of the Year for East and West Hertfordshire will take place in the winning communities on Saturday 23rd July. 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: 0161 817 4200 email: emma.flinn@connectpoint.co.uk