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Allendale is England's No.1 Village
The Northumberland village of Allendale is celebrating its new status as the country’s top village, having just been revealed as the overall winner of the 2006/7 Calor Village of the Year® for England competition.
Allendale was announced as the regional winner for North England. Since then villagers were on tenterhooks, waiting to hear if they could go one step further and clinch the national prize. The final results of the competition were revealed at a glamorous awards luncheon which took place in London on Tuesday 16th October with guest of honour food writer and presenter Sophie Grigson.
As the 2006/7 Calor Village of the Year® for England, Allendale wins £7,000 prize money, which is on top of the £2,000 the village gained as a regional winner, and a further £1,250 prize money for regional category prizes in Building Community Life and Young People. With a total of £10,250 to go towards community projects and the kudos attached to winning the title of Calor Village of the Year® for England, it’s no wonder that villagers are celebrating their success!
The Calor Village of the Year® for England competition rewards vibrant, self-sustaining village communities which, irrespective of size, have made the best of local opportunities to maintain and enhance the quality of life for all residents. The competition, which is organised and funded by gas supplier Calor, judged villages on six categories covering Building Community Life, Business, Young People, Older People, the Environment and Information Communication Technology (ICT).
To win the overall title for England, Allendale excelled in all six competition categories, beating off stiff competition from four other regional winners – Filkins & Broughton Poggs (South England); Henlow, Bedfordshire (East England); Bromham, Wiltshire (West England) and Geddington, Northamptonshire (Central England). As a regional category winner for Building Community Life, Allendale was also in line for the Defra Building Community Life Award for the overall winner of this category; however, this prize went to the South England Building Community Life winner – Filkins & Broughton Poggs.
Managing director of Calor, Alex Davis commented: “Winning the title of Calor Village of the Year® for England is a fantastic achievement and the community of Allendale should be extremely proud of its success. Only the most vibrant, enterprising and caring communities get through to the final stages of this competition and this year in particular our independent judging team were faced with some excellent villages. Our congratulations go to Allendale and we hope that their success in this competition encourages them to further develop as a community in the years to come. We would also hope that Allendale will act as a best practice example for other villages, inspiring them on how to become and remain sustainable.”
James Money-Kyrle, Chief Executive of the Plunkett Foundation and member of the judging team, added: “The Calor Village of the Year® competition is a great opportunity for rural communities to celebrate their vibrant and dynamic community spirit. This year we were privileged to visit five villages across England that did this in spades. I was so impressed by the energy, passion and leadership of these rural entrepreneurs – they love their communities. They managed to pack their village halls with literally hundreds of different people, activities, societies and community groups; at times there was hardly enough room for the judges. These villages successfully demonstrated their huge wealth of community spirit and determination to make their communities confident, cohesive and special places to live. The Plunkett Foundation believes in dynamic, vibrant and inspiring rural communities. We need to support the wealth of talent and local leadership that is still thriving deep within our rural villages and towns, as so ably demonstrated by the finalists in this year's Calor Village of the Year® competition.”
For further information regarding the competition please contact Emma Flinn or Sara Tomkins on 0161 817 4200, email emma.flinn@connectpoint.co.uk.
