Dumfries excells in Beautiful Scotland Awards

Sep 24 2010 by Kieran Westbrook, Dumfries Standard Friday

DUMFRIES has been handed a top award at the Beautiful Scotland prize-giving.

The town has been given a Silver Gilt award – which rates between silver and gold – in the Large Town category of the competition.

Mark Jardine of the People’s Project entered Dumfries into the annual event, chaperoning the judges around the best bits of the town. And he’s delighted with the result.

He said: “This is our first year in the competition and I’m very pleased with our result. I suppose getting the silver gilt is like being highly commended.

“There are other towns which have been competing for years and are still only getting silver and bronze, so I think it’s a good result.

“There are things I have learned at the prize-giving which I will be using in future. We can hopefully now use this to market the town to tourists.”

The judges were impressed by the arrangements of flowers and hanging baskets around the town, the attractive private gardens, the green areas around Dumfries, and the business displays.

They wanted more information about winter or spring displays and fewer weeds in some areas.

The town was given a rating of 160 out of 200.

Mark added: “I would like to thank the following groups who all deserve recognition for their hard work: Dumfries Civic Pride, the council and their award-winning gardens, businesses, shopkeepers, householders, eco-schools, community groups, and the Standard for its continuing support for the People’s Project.”

Other areas of Dumfries and Galloway that excelled at the awards night, which was held in Glenrothes on Wednesday, were Kirkconnel, Whithorn, Moniaive and Wigtown.

Moniaive picked up a silver medal certificate while Kirkconnel was presented with a bronze. Whithorn went home with a Special Endeavour Award for Castlehill Park and a silver medal certificate and Wigtown was presented with the large village shield along with a silver gilt medal certificate.