Winning teams

Chichester and Otley Colleges are celebrating their joint Gold positions in the final of the 2008 WorldSkills UK Landscape Gardening competition. Organised by the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) on behalf of UK Skills, the final took place at SALTEX.

Chichester College, Craven College, Moulton College and Otley College battled it out to create identical 7m x 7m gardens, demonstrating the range of skills required of today’s landscapers.

Over 15,000 visitors attend this years and many took time to watch the competition and cheer on the teams. Lord Michael Heseltine CH, who visited IOG SALTEX to launch the new National Highways Sector Scheme 18 for Landscaping and the Environment, including Ecology, took time to visit the competition and talk to the competition’s technical director, Peter Killen, and project manager Angela Radley. Lord Heseltine was extremely interested to see the young landscapers working well under pressure and producing very creditable work

The young people involved, aged between 17 and 25, had all competed with their teams in qualifying heats, which began in May this year. The teams in the final battled hard over four days to each build a technically challenging garden, designed by multi Chelsea Gold Medal winning designer Andy Sturgeon of Andy Sturgeon Garden Design.

The winning teams were presented with their awards by Jonathan Swift, Chairman of main sponsors Lantra Awards, and BALI National Chairman, John Gillan.

The full results are as follows:

Joint 1st Place (Gold) – Chichester College (David Kelly and Matthew Smith – Tutor Mark Howard), and Otley College (Simon and William Gadd – Tutor Ken Higginbotham)

3rd Place (Bronze) – Craven College (Luke Denby and Andrew Brier – Tutor Michael Myers)

Runners Up – Moulton College (Joe Postlethwaite and Tom Moore – Tutor Tim Walker)

www.worldskills.org.

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