EVESHAM won a silver gilt award in the medium town category of this year's area Britain in Bloom contest.

The mayor of Evesham Diana Raphael attended the ceremony held in Hereford's Courtyard theatre last Friday.

She said: "Obviously we are disappointed that we didn't win the gold, but our town has never looked prettier." Kenilworth was the winners and scooped the gold award, and Droitwich and Warwick also picked up silver gilts with Evesham.

"All I can say is Kenilworth must have looked magnificent, but we intent to go for gold next year."

Coun Raphael explained that this was the first year that the Royal Horticultural Society had run the event, and it had made some changes to the format.

She said: "No longer do we have 1st 2nd and 3rd, but gold, silver gilt, silver and bronze. If you reach a certain standard then the entrants can all receive the same awards, but there is just one overall winner in each category."

Coun Raphael said that she would be attending a Britain-in-Bloom seminar in October where she would be raising a few points regarding the new set-up.

She said: "We would rather know whether we came first second or third. Also in the past community spirit scored a large part of the marks. "

Meanwhile invitations are going out for the Evesham in Bloom and Schools in Bloom presentation night to be held in the town hall at 7pm on September 27.