Atherstone Town Council (ATC) has this week received an award recognising the hard work and commitment of councillors and staff.

The town council has been presented with 'Local Council Award Scheme Foundation Award' by Warwickshire & West Midlands Association of Local Councils (the local regulatory body).

This award is available to local councils across the nation and is designed "to celebrate the successes of the very best local councils and to provide a framework to support all local councils to improve and develop to meet their full potential.

"The scheme offers councils the opportunity to show that they meet the standards set by the sector, assessed by their peers, and to put in place the conditions for continued improvement."

Atherstone Town Councillors have been working towards this award over the past months by completing a number of different training courses as well as completing various criteria under the brackets of 'Governance', 'Community', and 'Development'.

Speaking at last night's (February 17) ATC meeting Mayor of Atherstone Cllr Denise Clews said: "Congratulations to both clerks and all councillors involved. For such a small council we have done so well.

"Thank you again for all the hard work that has been put in to this."

Deputy Town Clerk Sally Oldham said: "The Foundation Level, a lot of councils achieve that, but obviously moving to the next two levels that is more unusual but there is no reason why Atherstone Town Council cannot progress to the next two levels if they wish to."

Should they chose to ATC could now apply for the next level of the scheme 'Quality' and then 'Quality Gold' after that.