Campaign group win top countryside award

A Frome campaign group has won a ‘Countryside Changemaker Award’ at a recent regional awards ceremony.

People for Packsaddle received the honour in the CPRE Somerset Love Your Countryside Awards for their efforts to protect Packsaddle Fields from development.

The Love Your Countryside Awards are decided by a panel of judges from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), who noted the huge programme of community mobilisation undertaken to oppose attempts to build on the fields, which have been enjoyed by the community for more than 50 years.

Members of the group attended the awards ceremony on Thursday 11th June.

The judges said they were impressed by, “the innovative ways the community has fundraised and kept the momentum of the campaign going, against considerable odds, and their unwavering and inventive efforts to protect the green space.”

A member of People for Packsaddle, Janet Hague, said, “We are honoured and proud to accept this award on behalf of the community, in recognition of everyone’s formidable efforts to protect our beloved fields, which we’ve been campaigning to save for over four years. This award is a boost to our campaign. At a time when our own council is acting against us, it’s brilliant to have this recognition.”

CPRE, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, has also launched a new national campaign, ‘On the Edge’, which recognises the importance of the countryside on the edges of the nation’s towns and cities. It aims to help protect and regenerate the countryside around every town and city and has included Packsaddle Community Fields in its ‘Stories from the Edge’ to show how Frome residents are fighting for the countryside on their own doorstep.

Find out more about the campaign to save Packsaddle Fields at www.peopleforpacksaddle.org