Keep Scotland Beautiful announces 2016 Local Environmental Quality award winners
Environmental charity, Keep Scotland Beautiful, has revealed that South Ayrshire Council has received a prestigious Local Environmental Quality Award in recognition of efforts to improve Scotland’s local environment.
The local authority celebrated its success at the annual awards ceremony earlier this week (Tuesday 15 March), hosted by Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Local Environmental Quality Network (The LEQ Network) which aims to improve the cleanliness and quality of the environment on publicly accessible land in Scotland.
South Ayrshire Council was presented with the Community Participation Award, sponsored by Helping Hands Environmental, recognising the success of the Newton Primary Freestyle Environmental Visual Audit (FEVA) project.
Based in the Wallacetoun area of Ayr, the project involved pupils from Newton’sP4/5 class going out into their community and recording environmental issues to help them understand the consequences of negative behaviour. FEVA involved both children and the community with young people encouraged to feedback on what they found to families and friends. Issues such as dog fouling, littering, fly tipping, and discarded alcohol bottles all featured as well as positive aspects such as open/green spaces, play parks and attractive flower beds. The aim of the initiative was to encourage children to take responsibility and to make a positive difference in their own community,
On receiving the award Mike Newall, Head of Neighbourhood Services, South Ayrshire Council said, “It’s fantastic to be recognised with this prestigious award from Keep Scotland Beautiful.
“We’re committed to provide our children and young people with the best possible life chances, and helping them develop into responsible citizens is an important part of their general education.
“We’ve worked closely with Newton Primary School and the people of Wallacetoun to improve their local environmental quality and look forward to developing this project in the months ahead.”
All entries excelled in delivering significant improvements to local environmental quality, engaging the wider community and networks in order to deliver environmental enhancements and undertaking targeted and innovative action to improve their local area.
Lindsay Richmond, UK Product and Communities Manager at Helping Hand Environmental said, “We are proud and delighted to sponsor the Community Participation Award and to support Keep Scotland Beautiful in its quest to make Scotland clean, green and more sustainable.”
Images of the winners receiving their awards can be accessed here.
Derek Robertson, Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, said:
“It gives me great pleasure to extend my warmest congratulations to this year’s LEQ Award winners from South Ayrshire. Local authorities and duty bodies from across Scotland are working hard to improve local environmental quality and today’s winners demonstrate the unique approaches which are being development in order to allow us to address specific environmental problems.
“Poor local environmental quality can have a significant impact upon health and well-being in local communities. At Scotland’s Local Environmental Quality Conference on 15 March we launched a report highlighting that Scotland’s local environmental quality is in decline. However, programmes undertaken by the LEQ Network and their partners, including schools, help to improve local places for people, create further community cohesion and build more civic pride Scotland-wide.”
The awards ceremony marked the closing of the LEQ Network annual conference, and highlighted the outstanding work that has been carried out over the past year by Local Environmental Quality Network members.
Membership of the Network is open to all environment improvement professionals, many of them employed by Scotland’s major land managers, including local authorities and private sector organisations. The Network aims to ensure the sharing of best practise amongst those responsible for maintaining Scotland’s open spaces.
ENDS
Notes to editors
- Keep Scotland Beautiful is the charity that campaigns, acts and educates on a range of local, national and global environmental issues to change behaviour and improve the quality of people’s lives and the places they care for. We are committed to making Scotland clean, green and more sustainable. Further details from keepscotlandbeautiful.org The charity’s Chief Executive, Derek Robertson, is also President of the Clean Europe Network.
- The Local Environmental Quality Network (LEQ Network) is a partnership programme for local authorities and other land managers or duty bodies which aims to bring about an improvement in the cleanliness and quality of the environment on publicly accessible land through effective, efficient management and targeted action. Further details at:
www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/environmental-quality/local-environmental-quality-network/
- The LEQ Network is closely linked to our Clean Up Scotland Campaign and many of the programme partners are actively supporting the campaign and taking action to clean up Scotland’s local environments.
- Media enquiries to Peter Duncan on 07740469949 / peter@messagematters.co.uk or Kirsty Leiper on 07908781331 / kirsty@messagematters.co.uk
