The Countryside Alliance Awards, now in their fifth year, aim to celebrate the characters, skills, traditions and enterprise of the countryside through the people who work so hard to make it tick. This year’s Awards attracted a record 2,500 nominations from the public, all of a high calibre. Regional finalists across four categories included village shops and Post Offices, butchers, breweries, pubs, cheese makers, feed merchants, smokeries, tea rooms, hotels, ice-cream makers, farm shops and even an oysterage.  

 

The categories are:  

1. Local Food Award
2. Village Shop/Post Office Award
3. Rural Enterprise Award
4. Daily Telegraph Traditional Business Award
 

The national judging panel, chaired by Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart, will now meet to select the overall winners of the 2009 Awards. Other members of the judging panel are Andrew Pierce Assistant Editor of the Daily Telegraph, Clarissa Dickson-Wright the well known TV cook and countrywoman, Emma Penny Editor of agriculture’s national newspaper the Farmers Guardian and Alexia Robinson who is Director of British Food Fortnight, a national initiative which promotes and supports our food and farming heritage.  

 

The Grand Final will take place at the House of Lords in London on Wednesday 3rd February 2010, and we shall be there with the other regional winners to find out who has taken the British crown in each of the four categories. At the Grand Final the Rural Hero of 2009 and the Countryside Alliance Political Awards will also be announced.

Click here to read an article by Charlie Brooks in the Daily Telegraph on 20th November about these awards.