Press Archive

2005 Village Competitions Underway

The 2005 Lincolnshire Best Kept Village and Village of the Year competitions are underway with information and entry forms going out to parish and town councils across the county.

The competitions are run by the Community Council of Lincolnshire on behalf of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. They are sponsored by Calor, the UK’s leading supplier of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) with additional support from Lincolnshire’s District and County Councils, Pennells of Lincoln and Tucann Design and Print. The Best Kept Village competition has always proved very popular with the county’s villages and regularly attracts in excess of 100 entrants. But this year communities are being offered a new challenge as well with the launch of a completely separate Village of the Year competition.

Competition organiser, Teresa Palmer, explained: “The Best Kept and Village of the Year competitions each have a very different focus. Whilst the Best Kept concentrates on the appearance of a village – how well maintained the facilities are, how the general environment is cared for by the community etc, the Village of the Year competition has absolutely nothing to do with a community’s outer shell. Instead it concentrates on whether communities are making the best of what they’ve got for the benefit of all residents, from the very youngest to the oldest.” In total, the Village of the Year competition will judge communities on six aspects of village life: Building Community Life, Business, Young People, Older People, the Environment and Information Communication Technology. Competition support from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) this year has led to the availability of extra prize money for villages entering the Village of the Year competition.

Defra is providing additional funding in 2005 at both county and national level to enhance the newly established Building Community Life category. This means that there is total of £500 prize money for Lincolnshire’s Building Community Life section, which will be shared amongst one winner (£350) and one runner up (£150). Teresa Palmer added: “Whether a village is considering the Best Kept competition or the Village of the Year, we can’t stress enough what a great community activity entering can be. The competitions get communities working towards a common goal and they are a great way of getting to the heart of what really makes a community tick. The competitions are not difficult to enter and, prizes aside, they are a great opportunity for villagers to celebrate all the positive aspects of life in their village and say ‘well done’ to the people that get community projects up and running.”

Later in the year, one village will have the opportunity to go forward and represent the county in the prestigious national English Calor Village of the Year^® competition, which was recently launched on the BBC’s Countryfile programme. Thanks to Defra’s involvement, 2005 marks the first year in the competition’s history that every village in England has the opportunity to enter the English Calor Village of the Year^® competition, which this year has a prize fund of over £36,000.

Lincolnshire’s entrants to the national competition have done well over recent years. In 2004 the village of Heighington won a regional category prize for Young People, as did Coningsby in 2003. Teresa Palmer concluded: “Our history of success in the national competition highlights that Lincolnshire’s villages are full of community spirit. It’s time for them to prove it again in 2005, and I’m confident that the new Village of the Year competition at county level will find us an even stronger contender for the national event.”

Further information regarding the competitions is available from Teresa Palmer by email at bkv@cclincs.com, or by telephoning 01529 302466. The deadline for entries is 6th May 2005 and judging will take place throughout June, July and August. The winners will be announced in September, and a formal presentation event will take place on 3rd November.

Further press information from: Emma Flinn, Flent PR Ltd tel: 0161 817 4200 email: e.flinn@amaze.com