Chance to clean up as best kept village

Shops, businesses and residents are being urged to help make a Staffordshire village better than the rest.

For the first time, Heath Hayes and Wimblebury Parish Council has entered Staffordshire's Best Kept Village Competition.

It is urging everyone to start work to get the area spick and span before judging starts on May 1. The prize up for grabs is a trophy and £200 toward a community project. Parish clerk Ray Smythe said he hopes the competition would help bring some spirit into the area.

Ray Smythe, the parish clerk, said: "The aim of entering the competition is to promote a bit of community spirit and pride in the area.

"We'll be contacting local pubs, local businesses, the churches, schools, in fact, a lot of people saying we are it encouraging them to help keep the village looking tidy.

"We have not entered it before because in the past we have seen the competition as about awarding the prettiest village going.

"The Community Council of Staffordshire has stressed it's about the best kept village, not the prettiest.

"On the basis that as you go around Heath Hayes there are no derelict buildings, litter and graffiti is minimal, we thought we can tick all the boxes for the competition here.

"So it was something the council considered would be good for the village.

"The entrance fee was only £12 and if we can use this as a lever to clean the phoneboxes, benches and bus shelters then all the better."

He is using the opportunity to ask BT to clean up their three telephone boxes which are in Heath Way, Hednesford Road and John Street.

Cannock Chase Council is being asked to clean up the bus shelters and Staffordshire County Council to target their workers to clean up the road signs.

Information about recycling, dog fouling and places where it can be disposed will be placed on noticeboards throughout the village.