Congleton received its best ever haul of awards at the Cheshire Community Pride Awards last week – scooping Best Kept Small Town, Best Community Web Site and a Little Gem Award for the Community Garden.
The Community Pride Awards, organised by Cheshire Community Action are open to towns and villages across East Cheshire, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Warrington. 53 towns and villages entered the competitions and judging was carried out through unannounced visits between April and August.
Congleton Town Mayor, Councillor David Martin said: “We are absolutely thrilled to receive these three awards. They reflect the hard work of so many people who believe in Congleton and work hard to make our town special”.
“I would like to thank all the volunteers who helped to plant, weed and litter pick, the businesses and organisations that supported local initiatives and worked hard to make their areas attractive, the town handymen and Cheshire East Streetscape for their continuous efforts and the bearmania team for giving us the bears and injecting some added excitement this summer.”
Margaret Williamson, Chair of Congleton Partnership and Ernie Clarke from the Buglawton Community Group collected the awards on behalf of the town at an awards ceremony held in Ellesmere Port.
Congleton has previously won the Best Kept Small Town (population 10,001 to 30,000) five times, winning in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2006 and 2007. The 2011 winners plaque will be displayed on a new post to be installed in the Community Garden. Last year Congleton was joint runners up with Alsager.
Best Community Web Site went to www.mybeartown.co.uk which is run through the beartown marketing volunteers, part of Congleton Partnership. This web site has grown from strength to strength and so far this year has had over 115,000 pages views – up 303% on last year. Last year mybeartown was the runner up in this award.
The Little Gem award is given to areas that the judges think are outstanding. This is the first time that the Community Garden has received this honour. The award is largely thanks to Albert Williams, Tim Lazarski and Ian Poole who between them have given hundreds of volunteer hours continuing the good work of Dorothy Latham and Dorothy Knott, who managed the garden until they ‘retired’ a couple of years ago.
The Town will hear the results of the North West in Bloom awards on Thursday 20th October at a ceremony in Southport; then planning will start in earnest for next year’s competitions. If you are interested in being part of the town team contact 01260 270350.
