More than 30 youngsters entered a competition to design the Mayor's official Christmas card. Designs, from children aged up to 11, ranging from Christmas puddings to festively decorated houses were submitted making judging extremely difficult.

More than 30 youngsters entered a competition to design the Mayor's official Christmas card.

Designs, from children aged up to 11, ranging from Christmas puddings to festively decorated houses were submitted making judging extremely difficult.

Mayor Tony Smith said: “It has been a very difficult task for my wife Sara and myself - all the entrants were wonderful and we would have been proud to use anyone of them as our official card.

“However, it was a competition and we had to choose a winner. We both agreed on the overall winning entrant, by eight year old William Foster, depicting Santa getting stuck in the chimney whilst the reindeers, including Rudolph, watched. The runners up, both from the under eight category, were Tyler Douglas and Holly Breadmore; we loved their entries so much that we put them on the back of the card.”

The winners and their guests attended a small reception hosted by the Mayor and Mayoress, in the Mayor's parlour, where they enjoyed orange squash and home-made cookies before being presented with framed copies of the card and Hippodrome Circus tickets donated by Christine and Peter Jay.