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Bratton Fleming, a North Devon Village, has been crowned Devon’s Community of the Year thanks to the work of its community composting group.

Just one month after scooping a ‘Green Community of the Year’ title, the Bratton Fleming Community Composting Group triumphed again at the annual competition’s inaugural awards ceremony, hosted by the Community Council of Devon.

The Community of the Year competition was launched by the Community Council of Devon, earlier this year, to find communities across Devon that have worked to improve their physical or social environments. This year’s events culminated in a community conference and awards ceremony at Exeter Racecourse on Saturday 8 October.

Elaine Cook, chief executive, Community Council of Devon said: “We were looking to communities throughout the county, to show us what they have been doing. We received 40 excellent entries which we managed to whittle down to a shortlist of three.”

This year’s winning community has been providing composting services for more than 15 years, processing more than 18,000 tonnes of the community’s green waste and producing free compost in return. The seven-strong community composting team meets weekly to manage the village’s green waste - its youngest member is just 18 years old, and the oldest is in his 70s. The Group has received £35,000 from North Devon District Council for providing this valuable service which has also been returned to the community in the form of funds to provide items such as play equipment, trees, shrubs and allotments.

Terry Shapland, a founding member of the community composting group said: “When we saw a leaflet promoting the competition we thought we’d give it a go. We don’t usually shout about what we do, we’re too busy chugging away at composting! We really glad we gave it a go as we won two awards – it’s fantastic!”

Elaine Cook added, “The two runners up were Bridgetown Alive from Totnes and the Ermington Community Comeback Project, whose entries were of a very high standard and are a credit to the teams working hard in these communities to improve their local environments.

“This year’s winning entry impressed the judging panel by managing to sustain a simple, but effective local solution, achieving real environmental benefits for their community. The financial contributions they have been able to make to other community groups and projects is inspiring”