Evening celebrates Fenland's volunteers with awards

A record number of volunteers who put pride in their communities and help make Fenland a cleaner, greener place for all to enjoy have been recognised at a special award ceremony.

Dedicated Street Pride, In Bloom and Friends groups were honoured for their hard work to improve the district’s streets, parks and green spaces at Fenland District Council’s annual celebration evening.

Fenland’s new Getting It Sorted recycling volunteers joined the event too this year, and were thanked for helping others to improve their recycling efforts.

A total of 112 volunteers attended the evening at March Braza Club, with awards given for the best nature, partnership, street scene and promotional project, along with best clean up, best youth project and new for this year, the best reduce, re-use, recycling project.

In an opening address, Coun Peter Murphy, the council’s Portfolio Holder for the Environment, thanked volunteers for their continued dedication and passion to making Fenland a better place to live and work.

“This evening is a time to say thank you to all the committed and dedicated groups of volunteers for all your enthusiasm and hard work for the benefit of everyone. The work carried out by all of you here tonight continues to make a huge difference to Fenland.

“It is wonderful to see how many of you have gone beyond litter-picking by broadening your aims to focus on new activities such as clearing neglected sites. So a massive ‘thank you’ to everyone. Well done!”

The ceremony heard that in the last six months alone, since April 2018, there had been more than 100 events planned by the groups to improve local areas.

This year has also seen two new Street Pride groups formed in Murrow and Wimblington, taking the total number to 16.

Coun Murphy presented the awards along with the council’s Street Pride co-ordinator Rebecca Robinett.

The winners were:

• Best Nature Project

Doddington Street Pride group; for its pond restoration project, which will result in two ponds in the village being enhanced.

• Best Partnership Project

March Street Pride/In Bloom; for its partnership with waste management company Amey.

• Best Street Scene Project

Whittlesey Street Pride; for its beet-cutter themed anniversary garden, created with £4,000 of Tesco ‘Bags of Help’ funding.

• Best Promotional Project

Benwick In Bloom/Street Pride; for its yarn bombing initiative! Members knitted figures to brighten up the village and raise awareness of cancer.

• Best Clean Up

Murrow Street Pride. One of the newest Street Pride groups have already decided to hold monthly litter picks and identify areas for improvement.

• Best Youth Project Chatteris In Bloom/Street Pride; for an eye-catching bus shelter mural marking 100 years since the end of the First World War in partnership with youth members of Chatteris Royal British Legion.

• Best Reduce, Reuse, Recycling Project – Tydd St Giles Street Pride; for upcycling tired-looking planters into attractive new features for the village.