Richmond Rotary's Best Kept Village Champions

For 16 years now Richmond Rotary Club in North Yorkshire has organised a Best Kept Village award and this year’s winner was Aldbrough St John.

 New entrant Skeeby also received a prize, and for the first time this year, funding for saplings was awarded to West Scrafton and East Witton in recognition of how their villages had enhanced the environment to encourage nature.

Fifteen villages took part this year and the overall standard was judged to be extremely high.

 Rotarian Jos Huddleston, who organised the event praised the hard work and creativity of all participants, and explained the way the wide-ranging contest works: “We send out judges to all the villages during the same two weeks in July, and they score each village on 15 criteria ranging from public spaces and private gardens to the condition of bus shelters, shops, guest houses, inns and the encouragement of wildlife.

“Villages without some features are not penalised. After the first scoring a second visit by different judges is organised to the front runners to be sure that the scores are fair.

This year we introduced a special focus on environmental provision for wildlife.”