BIDSTON has won the title of Best Small Village for a fifth year at the Northwest In Bloom awards.

The accolade encourages communities to improve and care for their local environment through imaginative planting of trees, shrubs, flowers and landscaping, conservation and recycling projects and by tackling issues such as litter, graffiti and vandalism.

Bidston has won the silver award in their category for the past four years. It picked up its fifth during a ceremony at Southport Theatre on Thursday.

The village green also won the Amberol Trophy for the second time, named after the company that made the flower baskets that line the pavements in Hoylake.

Bidston Labour councillor Jim Crabtree, a horticultural tutor involved in helping the village achieve its silver award, told the Globe: "I'm over the moon. It's a great honour to have won the silver award again and to have picked up a second Amberol Trophy.

"This is all down to the community and shows what can happen when people get together."