Best Kept Village – the name itself lends itself to old England, settled communities, people working together and a pleasant place to live. In many ways it is exactly that; villagers giving up some of their time to make Fradley a better place to live. What’s not to like about that?

The Parish Council has allocated money to ensure entry into the Best Kept Village Competition.

What is the BKV? The judging of the competition has 18 separate components to it, all having a set number of points attached to them which adds to 100. These items are designed to reach to the very essence of ‘I love living here’ and are designed to be challenging to achieve.

If there’s a what there’s also a why: Why do we do it? To us it is what ‘community’ is all about. It absolutely relies on volunteers, people spending a little of their time to improve the village, meeting together, working together, making friends. These things don’t happen by accident and a little goes a long way. Half an hour every two weeks is over a day’s work every year!

These ‘wins’ – which result of a cleaner, tidier village -are the work of a small group of volunteers who make up the BKV Working Party group and there is always a need for more people to help. With a rapidly expanding population we hope you asking yourself; why not? Many of our volunteers simply litter pick most times they go for a walk at there our time to suit them. However, we do arrange monthly meetings through most of the year to tackle larger projects.

Then there is administration. Even if you have mobility problems you can be involved; or do you have an idea? There are BKV admin meetings most months. These are normally held at 7:30pm on the 4th Wednesday of the month in the Parish Office. Here we discuss maintaining village standards, how to improve the village and planning of future projects.

If you would like to get involved or can help in any way, please contact the Parish Clerk 

Projects

 

Best Kept Village 2020

 Judging takes place between May and July, so everyone can help to keep the village looking perfect throughout these months. But the BKV competition can only be won with support from you – the residents.

Firstly, there must be posters displayed and designed by children relating to the BKV competition – these can come through support from the school, uniformed groups, residents themselves or Messy Church.

Secondly, the judges need to see that you, the villagers, are involved in the BKV – this can be as simply as displaying posters in your windows to remind people that we have entered the BKV competition or coming along to help at working parties, etc.

Each year, as part of the competition, there are prizes to be won by residents - awarded to winners of the following categories:

The Parish Council contract the maintenance of the village to a specialist private company who maintain the grassed areas, cut back shrubs and hedges, empty litter bins and tidy various areas throughout the village. Please note the contractor is for maintenance, not gardening. The Handyman, Derek, is also instrumental in the upkeep of the village - maintained park equipment, benches, bins, along with many other things. Area improvement and helping with some of the areas which do not belong to the Parish Council can be assisted so much by volunteers.

Meetings 

Contact the Clerk to find out when the next Best Kept Village meeting is to be held.