AMT Public

Press release: 22 July 2009

ECOWEEK in Faringdon wins top market town award in South East

A Partnership that worked towards moving its community to a smaller and more sustainable footprint was named winner of the South East Market Town Awards.

2,300 people enjoyed 33 separate low-carbon events, from visits to hi-tech plasma waste facilities to tours of low-tech allotments. The local community ate ecoburgers, cycled into the summer solstice, and even broke a world record along the way. ECOWEEK involved the whole community – from birdwatchers right through to bread-baking watermill lovers.

The project made good use of new media for awareness and publicity, including a detailed www.ecoweek.info website, use of blogs, forums, email distribution lists, viral marketing, Google Adwords campaign and links to a digital magazine.

The judges felt it was an ‘excellent well rounded project’ and deserved national recognition for all their hard work and positive outcomes.

Faringdon ECOWEEK was also named the winner of the Social & Community category.

Other winners were:

Business and Economy category: Wireless Godalming demonstrates a collaborative public/private partnership that provides free wireless network internet within a half mile radius of the town centre. It is a low cost replicable service for market towns.

Environment and Culture category: Butterfly Garden, Hythe & Dibden is an excellent example of joined up thinking and how a local parish and local school worked together to create a butterfly garden and more local picnic tables for the benefit of the whole community.

Partnership & Strategic Working category: Caterham meets Storrington demonstrates the benefit of learning from other towns through a study tour to Storrington that helped Caterham learn from their experiences through a bus trip & town to town exchange.

The South East Market Town Awards are part of the National Market Town Awards run by Action for Market Towns which each year celebrate the great variety of volunteer-led projects that are helping to regenerate and sustain small towns throughout the country.

The Awards were presented at a South East Rural Towns event, in partnership with Action for Market Towns and Oxfordshire Rural Community Council in Faringdon on Tuesday 21st July 2009.

Ends

For further press information on the market town awards, please contact: John Pole on 01430 441557. E-mail: john.pole@towns.org.uk

To contact the Faringdon ECOWEEK project, ring Sjoerd Vogt on 01367 241 707 or
sjoerd@ecoweek.info or visit www.ecoweek.info

Market Town Awards homepage