LOVEmyBEACH

Primary school pupil lights up as she meets TV star and sees her design in lights
Earlier this year the LOVEmyBEACH campaign teamed up with Blackpool Council and Blackpool Illuminations curator Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen to launch an illuminations competition with primary schools across the North West. The competition required children to design an illumination which would encourage local people and visitors to help keep the beaches clean.
After receiving over 50 fantastic designs from a selection of schools, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen worked through a short list and picked a winner. At the Blackpool Illuminations launch event on the 3rd August, he announced Katie Critchley, aged 9, from St Gregory’s Primary School in Chorley as the winner.
Attending the launch event with her mum, dad, brother and teachers, Katie was ecstatic to win the award and meet the TV star.
Miss McCluskey, Katie’s teacher added, “We are extremely proud that Katie has won this competition and gets to have her design made into a real illumination. She has worked very hard in school over the last year, has grown massively in confidence and winning this award is testament to that. She was very receptive of the messages in the LOVEmyBEACH and like others in the class are becoming the next generation of litter heroes and artists who care about global issues affecting not only their local area but their global community too.”
The winning design has since been transformed into a Blackpool Illumination and is on display along the Cliffs section before the large tableaux at the north end of the display from 1st September to 5th November 2017.