Youngsters in Marlborough will see their festive designs sent out to hundreds of people thanks to the town’s first mayoral Christmas card competition.

Pupils at the town’s primary schools, St Mary’s, St Peter’s and Preshute, all had the chance to create a design around the theme Marlborough at Christmas and Mayor Guy Loosmore and his wife, Fiona, whittled down the entries to a winning card from each school.

Winners Cooper Wilson from St Peter’s, Florence Gibbon from Preshute and Charlie O’Shaughnessy from St Mary’s were delighted to be presented with a congratulatory certificate from Coun Loosmore.

Coun Loosmore said: “They were all very happy and excited when we went to the schools to announce the winners.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make. My good lady wife and I poured over the designs for hours and we shortlisted them and then went back to them and chose the final three.

“If we could we would have chosen them all, as I said to the children ‘they’re all winners’ but we had to pick one card from each school.

“I was very impressed by all of the designs. Children’s creativity is amazing.

“One of the winning designs has me as Santa in my red suit which is quite cute and the others are more traditional designs but they are all special in their own right.”

The printed cards arrived earlier this week and will be sent out to the mayor’s contacts.

He said: “I decided to have this competition rather than send out other cards because it’s a good way for the children to get involved in the town, building the community and for them to see what it is that the mayor does.

“It would be nice if the competition could roll over to future years but as with many things that’s a decision for individual mayors during their mayoral year.”