ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners will today be honoured as the winners of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's annual Grimewatch awards are announced.

And it is a poignant ceremony that will take place at Ivy Bank High School, last year's winners of the High School Category, for after 12 successful campaiging and award winning years Grimewatch is coming to an end.

The judges, representatives of the various groups that sponsor the event BAe Systems, Groundwork Blackburn, the Tidy Britain Group, the Environment Agency and the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, studied the many entries and between them drew up a shortlist of 26 candidates spanning eight categories.

Grimewatch co-ordinator Lynn Schofield said the competition was getting stronger every year.

She said: "It was a very difficult task but we are confident we have come up with a selection which is worthy of the awards."

The awards ceremony will be attended by chief guest Gordon Prentice, the MP for Pendle, who will be joined by the Mayor of Blackburn and Darwen Borough Council Coun Jack Bury and other guests in handing out the awards. Lancashire Evening Telegraph assistant editor Nick Nunn is to present the ceremony.

This year's standards were as high as ever and shortlisted finalists included an entry for a self-suffcient garden in Burnley, a comprehensive recylicng project in a Clayton-Le-Moors firm plus a whole host of inspirational schemes which proves East Lancashire folk care about their environment.

The shorlisted entries in the various categories are: Nursery Schools: Chapel's Nursery, St Anne's Edgeside and Walton Lane. Primary Schools: Hargher Clough, St Mary's Newchurch in Pendle, West End Primary. High Schools: Darwen Vale, Ivy Bank, Townhouse. Business: Gaskell Textiles Ltd, M&G Plastics Ltd, WJC Dip Mouldings Ltd. Community: Blackburn Churches Action, Friends of Pennine House, Hoddlesden Millennium Green, Offshoots. Local Authority: Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council Shorey Bank, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council Green Community Chest, Burnley Borough Council Vanguard Open Space, Pendle Borough Council Pendle Pride. Heritage: Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Pendleton Women's Institute, Wallace Hartley Memorial Fund. Long Term: Blackburn Churches Action, Ewood and Fernhurst Community Association, Stacksteads Riverside Park.