Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, announced the winners of the 2008 Scottish Urban Regeneration Forum (SURF) Awards for Best Practice at a dinner in Glasgow's Radisson Hotel on Thursday 4th December 2008.

Now in its 10th year, the prestigious annual awards recognise and promote best practice in regeneration and social inclusion projects in Scotland in three categories - People, Places and Partnership.

The event also highlights the wide range of excellent regeneration work taking place across the county to breathe new life into communities, help tackle poverty and make a positive difference to the lives of people who live there.

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The six winning and highly commended projects from over 50 strong entries and the panel of nine independent judges travelled to observe projects across the country, from Livingston and Clydebank to Aberdeen and Thurso.

After sifting through the applications and visiting 13 different short-listed projects, the successful projects are:

• People Category Winner - Blantyre Youth Development Team (Blantyre, South Lanarkshire)
• Highly Commended - Alderman Road Community Garden (Knightswood, Glasgow)
• Place CategoryWinner - Animating the Canal (Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire)
• Highly Commended – Lochgelly Town Square (Lochgelly, Fife)
• Partnership Category Winner - Brooksbank Centre and Services (Mid-Craigie & Linlathen, Dundee)
• Highly Commended – Daisy Drop In (Livingston, West Lothian)

The SURF Awards are sponsored by the Scottish Government’s Scottish Centre for Regeneration, which is supportive of work aimed at identifying and sharing good practice in regeneration.

(GK/JM)