CPRE Hampshire presents its first Outstanding Achievement award to Buriton's Village Plan

As part of this year's Countryside and Design Awards, CPRE Hampshire has awarded the first ever Outstanding Achievement Award to the people of Buriton, for their community work on the 'Village Voice' project.

Over the past years, the Buriton villagers worked together to produce a Parish Plan for their community. The Parish Plan sets out a vision for the future and identifies the actions needed to tackle these issues, in addition to including everything that is relevant and important to the people who live and work in the community.

The people of Buriton have worked hard in a creative way to gather views and comments from all sections of their community to produce their Parish Plan, called 'Village Voice'. This work has really brought the villagers together, with a number of interesting benefits:

• Following its publication 'Village Voice' has been used in Buriton to influence and inform local policy decisions. Examples include: providing evidence for the Parish Council's objection to the revised South Downs boundaries and using it as evidence to persuade Ordinance Survey to change Sat Nav routes, so that users will be discouraged from using small rural roads as through routes.
  
  
• The work through the Parish Plan has brought the community together, through organising local events. Amongst these activities are events for younger people, backing a 'spring clean' litter-picking day and 'Down on Buriton's Farm's initiative which aims to improve community awareness of farming in the local area.
  
  
• The Village Voice has also been used to help the parish seek benefits for the community. Local organisations and groups have already arranged for a part-time Post Office to return to the village, are exploring the possibility of allotments, beginning to organise a 'Greening Buriton' campaign, improving amenities and looking into ways of saving local heritage features, amongst other initiatives.
  
  

CPRE Chairman, John Venning said

"Buriton's agenda and that of CPRE are pretty well identical. The way they value their landscape, their refusal to accept litter, their keenness on local food, their abhorrence of unnecessary roadsigns: all these and more are ideas that CPRE too holds dear. We are delighted to give them this unique award and we hope it will encourage them to continue on their way and that others will follow them. Congratulations Buriton!"

Paul Martin, who is a member of the Village Voice steering group and who designed all the printed material said:

"It's satisfying that the Parish Plan work is already bringing so many improvements for residents and visitors. But it's also pleasing that more and more villagers are giving their time to help make some of the proposals happen. That's what makes a real community and Buriton has always been special in that way."

CPRE Hampshire has also announced seven other award winners from around Hampshire in its categories of schools, voluntary/community, and public sector/business. They include the Privett Green housing project in Petersfield, Hampshire Fare for its free-range egg scheme and the Hampshire Food Festival; and Warren Park Primary School in Leigh Park, Havant for its outside classroom.

Inviting entries for 2010

CPRE Hampshire's Countryside and Design Awards scheme is to be run annually and is now open for the next round of entries, with a closing date of 21st March 2010. If you know of a project which you feel may be suitable for an award please visit: www.cprehampshire.org.uk/news/awards.html or contact 01962 843655 for further details.

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CPRE/H/168

Notes to editors

CPRE Hampshire strives to promote the beauty, tranquility and diversity of the countryside of Hampshire by the sustainable use of land and other resources in town and country, and encouraging the biodiversity and well-being of rural communities.

The CPRE Hampshire Countryside & Design Awards were set up to reward people who are working to enhance Hampshire's environment and to highlight the importance of good environmental practice. There are three categories:

• Schools - encouraging the use of landscape as an opportunity for learning, a high level of pupil involvement is one of its criteria.
• Voluntary/community - highlighting environmental conservation or restoration within the rural or urban environment and evidence of strong links to the local community.
• Public sector/ business - involving projects that show tangible progress towards tackling one or more of the core CPRE issues.

For information on CPRE, please contact:
Becky French or Pam Mason, CPRE Hampshire
Tel: 01962 843655
Email:admin@cprehampshire.org.uk

For all media enquiries, please contact:
Keren Burney, media & communications officer, CPRE Hampshire
Tel: 01730 894123   Mobile: 07876 780065
Email: kburney000@aol.com

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