It's official, Milton Keynes town is best kept in the entire county

The town shot to success in the annual Buckinghamshire Best Kept Village/Town Competition, which scours the county to find the neatest, cleanest and most attractive places.

On Saturday the competition organisers presented the winning trophy in a ceremony held around a special sign to mark the new status.

The sign has pride of place in the Church gardens in the centre of the ancient market town.

Meanwhile two villages in MK also won awards in the annual competition. Scenic Stoke Goldington scooped the Morris Cup in the best kept village category as well as the Sword of Excellence for the best place overall.

Great Brickhill won the Dashwood Trophy for best runner up who hasn't won a trophy in the last five years.

The competition judges had spent days travelling around the county to look at several specific features of each place. These included floral displays, playing fields, children’s play areas, graveyards, overall appearance and, importantly, evidence of community effort.

Villages or towns can enter for one of six different cups according to their population.

In Stony Stratford a delighted spokesman said this week: “Many groups in Stony Stratford play their part in this triumph."

These include the Stony Stratford Business Association and their volunteers, the church gardeners, the residents who care for the Horsefair Green Memorial Gardens, the Town Council and their contractors, Milstream; the Community Church litter pickers; MKC Environmental Service and the three It's Your Neighbourhood Groups in Fullers Slade, Galley Hill and the North End Pond and Wildlife Area.

Bill, the street cleaner, does a sterling job keep the town tidy, as do the individual residents who pick up litter as they walk around the town.

But one of the most outstanding features of Stony Stratford is the flower displays, which are planted and maintained each year by volunteers from the Stony in Bloom group.

Over the past eight years the town has amassed no less than eight Gold Awards in the Britain in Bloom contest. Preparations for this year’s competition have been going on for months and this week the 2022 winners are due to be announced.