Stockport Council has won three awards at the Institute of Public Relations North West Pride Awards for communications excellence.

The Council won the Gold award for the Best In-house PR Campaign with Operation Springclean. This initiative, a partnership between all Services of Stockport Council, and the Stockport Express, was a campaign boosting civic pride and encouraging residents, businesses and voluntary organisations to get involved in a big tidy-up of the borough. In addition, the Council also won the Silver award in the category Best Integrated PR Campaign with Stockports Adult Education enrolment campaign Go For It!

The Council also beat off stiff competition to win another Gold and take the accolade of Best In-house Communications Team of the Year for its Marketing and Communications Unit.

The judges said that in terms of both the total number of entries and the standard, the North West awards far exceeded any other region with entries from mainly private sector PR and marketing agencies. Stockport Council was the only local authority in the region to reach the final.

Councillor Mark Hunter, Leader of Stockport Council, who led the Operation Springclean campaign, said: Stockport is again at the forefront of pioneering fresh approaches to difficult problems. Working alongside excellent partners like the Stockport Express on Operation Springclean, we were able to make a real difference to the local environment. The people of Stockport responded marvellously, as they always do, in showing a huge amount of pride in their borough and helping to make it a cleaner and greener place. I am also delighted that the work of our Communications team has been formally recognised as outstanding.