Email received from the Rotary Club of Richmond: I write to thank you and the villagers of Melsonby for taking part in the Rotary Club of Richmond Best Kept Village Competition 2024. I have to inform you that on this occasion you were not a prize winner. I know how much the effort you have made has contributed to the highest of standards in this competition. The prize winners in the three sections are listed below. I understand how this will be disappointing for all those involved after months of effort. The standard of all participant villages is immensely high.

We do not publish a full list of scores achieved or provide individual village feedback, but later in August I will prepare a guide to those things across all the entrants, that the Judges found enhanced scores and all those things that village groups may consider helpful to do in the future.

We have diversified the prizes this year. Although villages may have qualified for more than one of these prizes, as we said we would at the start of the competition, we have spread the prizes where this is the case. We are pleased that there are new village names among the prizes this year and we are delighted these are awarded right across the region.

1st Prize £400 in the Richmond Rotary Best Kept Village – Aldborough St John

New Entrant (since 2019) £100 – Skeeby

£50 to provide a sapling in recognition of how the village has enhanced the environment to encourage nature and encouraged individuals to do the same – West Scrafton and East Witton