South East Market Town Awards 2010 – about the winners
By Katie Fewings • Jul 9th, 2010 • Category: AwardsRevival of historic motor event wins top market town award in the South East of England
Kop Hill Climb was a famous venue for motorsport road racing between 1910 and 1925. Now the Community Action team in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire has recreated the famous event as part of a programme to involve the community in raising the profile of Princes Risborough and increasing economic activity. The project has won the South East of England regional prize in the prestigious Market Town Awards and will go head-to-head with projects from seven other regions in the National Market Town Awards.
250 veteran and vintage cars and motorcycles took part in the event, from the oldest 1903 Humberette to the original 1921 Aston Martin prototype, last driven on Kop Hill in 1922, and onwards to a 2009 Bugatti Veyron. The Kop Hill Climb was run by the British Motorsport Marshals Club.
The complex logistics involved a team of six volunteers spending 15 months on planning the event, including arranging for grandstand and viewing platforms, road closures, layouts of the entrants paddock, trade and food stands and spectator car parks. 110 volunteers acted as event stewards to control traffic and spectators.
The Market Town Award judges commented that the project was an excellent example of partnership working, using historic event to enhance a ‘sense of place’.
The Kop Hill Climb won Risborough Area Community Action (RACA) the Environment and Culture Category in the regional Market Town Awards and was also the overall regional winner. The award was presented at a ceremony in Faringdon by Lord and Lady Faringdon, and Chris Wade, Chief Executive of Action for Market Towns. They now go head-to-head with other regional winners to compete for the National Market Town Award at the Action for Market Towns Convention in Chippenham, Wiltshire on October 12.
Other winners were:
Partnership and Strategic Working Category – Sandwich Quay, Kent for the refurbishment of public conveniences which was critical to support tourism in the town. A partnership between the town council and the district council involved £40,000 being spent on refurbishment by the district council in return for the town council taking on the management.
Social and Community Category – Caterham Festival, a six-week long arts and cultural festival. Based around the existing Town Carnival, 72 new events were added, over half of them free with something for everyone, including a street party for the whole town, art exhibitions and lessons, music lessons and an open Caterham Weekend.
Business & Economy – Trout and About, Stockbridge Area Partnership for a project to raise the profile of local food and craft, by spotlighting the process of local food production from producer/grower to consumer. The project ‘Trout and About’ was named to capitalise on the world famous trout river The Test, which runs through the centre of Stockbridge. The project has highlighted local rural industries, encouraged new food business to the town and has encouraged existing food businesses to ‘stock local’.
The South East of England Market Town Awards are part of the National Market Town Awards which each year celebrate the great variety of volunteer-led projects which are helping to regenerate and sustain small towns throughout the country. The Awards are organised by Action for Market Towns, the national organization with over 400 towns in membership which supports the regeneration and vitality of small towns.
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 Kop Hill Climb, Princes Risborough, ring Tony Davies on 01844 346903
To contact Sandwich Quay, Kent, ring Tracey Ward on 01304 617197
To contact Caterham Festival, ring Andrew Parr on 07802 846902
To contact Trout and About, ring Richard Gueterbock on 07802 846902
Katie Fewings is Katie graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2000 with a BA in Modern Languages (French, Spanish & Portuguese). After a year teaching English in Barcelona, she returned to Sheffield where she joined the NHS and was responsible for coordinating training programmes for GPs and servicing the recruitment of trainee GPs.
Katie honed her organisational skills over nearly four years as PA to the Director of an internationally renowned firm of architects in London before moving to Brighton and taking up the post of Project Manager at the online ethical travel directory, responsibletravel.com. In this role, she organised the annual Responsible Tourism Awards with partners World Travel Market, The Telegraph, Geographical Magazine and BBC World News, and facilitated a programme to develop and support community based tourism with the Washington NGO, Conservation International.
Katie has a strong interest in issues of sustainability and social responsibility, and has set up her own website, Ethical Weddings (www.ethicalweddings.com) to help couples plan the wedding of their dreams without compromising their values. She also co-founded Our Ethical Network in Brighton to give ethically motivated businesses in the city the chance to meet one another, share common problems and explore business opportunities.
Katie is AMT’s Towns-4-Towns Coordinator and in this role will help towns to share knowledge and best practice from their successful initiatives through face-to-face and online networking.
She works Tuesdays and Thursdays and can be contacted on 07876 701 266 or by email at katie.fewings@towns.org.uk.
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