A TOWN COUNCIL have become the first in the Cotswold District to be awarded a Quality Gold award status.

Tetbury Town Council are celebrating the status under the Local Council Awards Scheme.

There are fewer than 40 Quality Gold Councils in the country and only five others in Gloucestershire that share that status.

The Local Council Award Scheme is said to recognise and celebrate the successes of the very best councils and provides a framework to support all councils to improve, develop and meet their full potential.

Open to all 10,000 parish and town councils in the country, the scheme involves an assessment carried by various county associations representing the parish sector.

Tetbury Town Council submitted a lengthy written portfolio earlier this year, and the validation panel for Gloucestershire visited Tetbury on May 1, to interview the mayor, two committee chairs and the town clerk.

The Panel stayed for two and a half hours asking range of probing questions to test whether the council met the criteria, before visiting various council projects to look for evidence that the council are serving the Tetbury community to ‘Quality Gold’ standard.

Tetbury Mayor, Stephen Hirst, said: “The fact that the Panel visits applicant Councils and spends quite some time asking very probing questions gives us assurance that the award scheme has genuine value and is far more than a feel-good or ‘tick box’ exercise.”