There was a pleasant surprise for the community recently when a Buriton project scooped the top award at a special ceremony near Winchester.
CPRE Hampshire has been running an annual awards scheme since 2007 and judges included Buriton's Chalk Pits initiative amongst a shortlist of nine projects for its 'Voluntary and Community Award'. Other finalists included projects in Andover, Baughurst, Crawley, Church Crookham, Fair Oak, Fleet and Lyndhurst.
The awards were presented by the Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire, Dame Mary Fagan DCVO JP, who was particularly impressed by the range of achievements that Buriton had managed to accomplish in a relatively short space of time.
In 2009, when there had been a threat to close all public access to the chalk pits site, the Parish Council had made it clear that it did not want this to happen. It launched an initiative, with support from East Hampshire District Council and the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, and subsequently obtained a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to help look after the site.
'Hampshire is a unique county,' said Dame Mary, '85 per cent of it is rural and our residents value the countryside. There have been great strides by people working together as communities. The CPRE deserves to be congratulated for all their achievements and I offer my congratulations to the award winners and everyone involved.'
John Cooper from CPRE Hampshire and chairman of the judges said: 'Our awards scheme celebrates the invaluable work that people in Hampshire are doing to support this unique countryside of ours. As judges, our task was made the more difficult but much more exciting by the quality and variety of the work undertaken by so many people, young and old, working in their communities, improving their local environment and strengthening the rural economy.'
In Buriton's case, the judging panel really liked the fact that so many local children now have such a good outdoor resource on their doorstep and the Parish Council was applauded for such a successful initiative.
This is the second time in three years that Buriton has won this county-wide award. The community's 'Village Voice' Parish Plan project had been given the 'Outstanding Achievement Award' of 2009.
