Judging Begins For 2007 Beautiful Cities & Towns

Judging begins for 2007 Beautiful Cities and Towns

Town and city pride is at stake when the Keep New Zealand Beautiful Society chooses its most beautiful city or town for 2007. The winner will be announced at the society’s annual meeting later next month.

Teams of volunteers are putting the finishing touches to their beautification projects as judging begins.

“Litter and graffiti poison the outlook in small towns and cities. They’re an eyesore and we hope this competition will make citizens aware that they can change things. No one should have to put up with this stuff if they choose not to,” Keep New Zealand Beautiful Society’s general manager, Barry Lucinsky says.

Mr Lucinsky says judging doesn’t involve just a quick drive up the main street to spy out the beauty spots. He says there’s a comprehensive check-list that includes such things as: both litter education and beautification projects; public involvement, not just a local government project; a set of objectives and their achievement; and cost-benefit studies showing a reasonable result.

“Handing over the award takes a few moments but those few moments say that enough people in this town over the past year took enough pride in it and worked hard enough to make their town stand out from the crowd. If we can help them maintain and spread those attitudes we’ll have done our work,” he says.

The competition categories include:
• A (Population 0 - 8,000)
• B (Population 8,001 - 20,000)
• C (Greater than 20,000)

Keep New Zealand Beautiful runs the Beautiful Towns programme to foster civic pride. It believes that to achieve that pride means more than just a once-a-year tidy up. The society aims to change attitudes so the clean-up becomes routine, not just a lead-up to its competition.

Keep New Zealand Beautiful has a range of current competitions and programmes, including its national Cleanup Week from 8 – 16th September in which more than 1 million participants are expected, Best Towns and Cities and Best Loo.

Last year’s winners of Best Cities and Towns:
2006 Category A: Alexandra/Clyde
Category B Feilding
Category C Rotorua.

ENDS

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