Press Archive

Village Celebration for Cheshire's Building Community Life Winners

The winning villages in the 2005 Cheshire Building Community Life competition have been presented with their prizes at an awards event held at Audlem Public Hall recently.

The competition, launched earlier this year following support from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and Calor – the UK’s leading supplier of liquefied petroleum gas, was organised by Cheshire Community Council. A total of 27 villages took part in the competition. They were judged on a wide range of criteria, from the networks available in a community to support people in need, to the range of activities that goes on in the village hall or other village centre.

The full results of the competition are as follows –

Winner: Audlem

Runner Up: Antrobus, Malpas

Highly Commended: Duddon, Pickmere, Burton

Mike Concannon of Calor and Anne Bell representing Defra presented representatives of the winning villages with framed commemorative certificates and cash prizes in recognition of their success. As the winner, Audlem was presented with £200 prize money, with another £300 being split between the other successful villages in the competition.

Competition organiser on behalf of Cheshire Community Council, Sylvia Batty, commented: “We would like to congratulate all the Building Community Life winners and thank them for their participation. The competition highlighted just how strong Cheshire’s villages are at developing community life and ensuring that all residents are well integrated. The judges were impressed with all of the villages and the standard was generally very high. However, Audlem just had that extra something to pip the other villages to the post and win the main prize.”

In a separate competition, the village of Audlem has also been awarded the title of 2005 Cheshire Village of the Year and, as such, has the added honour of being nominated to go forward and represent the county in the prestigious national English Calor Village of the Year^® competition, with the opportunity of gaining recognition at national level as well as a share in the £36,000 prize fund. Audlem is competing in the North England region of the competition against villages from Cumbria, Durham, Humber & Wolds, Lancashire, North Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Redcar & Cleveland, Tees Valley and Yorkshire. The Calor Village of the Year^® competition judges communities on a total of six aspects of rural village life, one of which is Building Community Life. The other five categories cover Business, Young People, Older People, the Environment and, judged separately, Information Communication Technology (ICT). The village of Rainow is representing Cheshire in the ICT section of the competition.

The full results of the Calor Village of the Year^® for England competition will be announced by guest of honour Alan Titchmarsh at an awards presentation being held in London on Tuesday 6th December.

For further information on the Cheshire Building Community Life competition, please contact Cheshire Community Council on 01244 323602, email enquiries@cheshirecc.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