A COMMUNITY celebrated some of it’s most dedicated residents and award winning businesses at a special meeting.

The Best of Bedale was applauded at the town’s annual parish meeting with awards to local residents who had given outstanding service and presentations by people involved in some of the major success stories.

Former Librarians Nathalie Garner-Ibbitson and Maggie Leathart were given community awards for their dedication to the town’s library which is now run by volunteers. Members of Bedale Community First Responders and Sandra Anderson of the Millings care home were also presented

Leaders of local businesses; Nigel Parkin of Upstairs at Institution, Karl Mason of Masons Yorkshire Gin and Sandra Anderson from The Millings care home were invited to speak by the town council which coordinated the event.

Mr Parkin said they had worked seven days a week to develop their boutique cafe for discerning customers which now included a top floor gin lounge. He said they enjoyed being based in the town and felt the new bypass had had a positive impact.

“Noise levels are dramatically different now, our feeling is the town is a more enjoyable place, so it is a thumbs up for the bypass. We think Bedale is a great town to run a business in, we love the independent nature of the town and we won’t be taking our business anywhere else, we have people coming in from many other areas.”

Mr Mason said they had built up their business from scratch over the past four years from an original 120 bottles of gin to distilling 77,000 last year:“We send gin all over the world including America and Australia. Now we want to see a brown tourist sign to Bedale distillery, we want to add to the community and make Bedale famous,” he added.

Mrs Anderson said the Millings care home which has been given a rare “outstanding” award by the Care Quality Commission, was quite unique because it was family owned.

She added: “We were really thrilled to get the CQC award, we like to do a lot of community things with our residents and we put them at the heart of everything we do.”

Mayor Cllr Christine Mollard thanked the community winners and businesses and added:”This parish meeting has shown that just because Bedale is a small place it doesn’t mean to say we can’t have big dreams and big ideas.”