South Kesteven District Council's Best Kept Village competition winners have gathered to collect their commemorative certificates and cheques – along with the gold litter bins awarded to the top villages.

Cllr Dr Peter Moseley, Cabinet member for Commercial and Operations, welcomed parish council representatives to Grantham and thanked them for their community efforts.

He said: "It's been a very difficult year in many ways, and I am delighted to see that community pride is still alive and well across South Kesteven. I thank everyone for their efforts.

"Our Best Kept Village competition was one of the first things that we were able to get going when we came out of the Coronavirus lockdown, and I was delighted to see the results when our judges reported back.

"We visited more than 80 villages and the feedback is giving us excellent pointers as to where we might need to target work from a council perspective."

Allington and Barrowby, joint top in the large village category, and Irnham, the winning small village, each received £400 and will have their inscribed litter bins installed.

Caythorpe and Stoke Rochford received £300 as second-placed villages in their categories and third placed Thurlby and Greatford received £200.

This is the third year that SKDC has organised its Best Kept Village Awards. Judges from the Council were helped by representatives from the Lincolnshire Gardens Trust, who assessed the condition of facilities and evidence of community pride.