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Stafforshire Building Community Life Winners Revealed

The winning villages in the 2005 Staffordshire Calor Building Community Life competition have been revealed at a presentation event held recently at the Staffordshire County Council Buildings in Stafford.

The competition, run by the Community Council of Staffordshire, was launched back in April following support for the Calor Building Community Life competition from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). Defra is providing funding in 2005 at both county and national level to enhance the newly established Building Community Life category. A total of £500 prize money was offer for villages in the competition. A shortlist of three communities went through the judging process during the summer to decide the winners – Yoxall in East Staffordshire, King’s Bromley in the Lichfield District and Ipstones in the Staffordshire Moorlands. They were judged on many aspects of their community life, from the networks available to support people in need, to the range of activities that goes on in the village hall or other village centre, and each village received a visit from the judging team.

The results of the competition are as follows –

Winner: Ipstones

Runner up: King’s Bromley

Highly Commended: Yoxall

Andy Mainwaring of Calor and David Howatson representing Defra presented representatives of the communities with their prizes, which included framed commemorative certificates.

Competition organiser on behalf of the Community Council of Staffordshire, Andy Halden, commented: “The judges were impressed by the community spirit in all three villages. Each one clearly has its strengths, and in some cases in the face of some quite difficult circumstances. They all deserve high praise and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate them on their success, as well as thanking them for their participation.”

Judges commented: “All three villages had some great examples of the community working together to achieve some ambitious and innovative projects to the benefit of all villagers. For example, King’s Bromley has nearly completed its Parish Plan, delivering it as a partnership between the community and the Parish Council. A community action group in Ipstones has delivered over 22 projects, having secured a large amount of external funding. In Yoxall there is a large range of shops and services and the community works hard to maintain these. However, it was Ipstones that stood out slightly in terms of its provision of community based services for all residents and we therefore decided it should be the winner in this year’s competition. We found Ipstones to be a very caring and inclusive community with an excellent community spirit. There are several voluntary, community and charitable initiatives in the village to provide for those in need, and activities, groups and clubs to cover all ages.”

The village of Alrewas has already been selected by the Community Council to go forward and represent Staffordshire in the prestigious national English Calor Village of the Year^® competition where there is a total of £36,000 on offer for successful villages and a top prize of £6,000. Alrewas is competing in the Central England region of the competition, against villages from Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland and Warwickshire.

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 Information Communications Technology (ICT).

Further information on the competition is available from the Community Council of Staffordshire on 01785 242525.

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