STUDENTS Chloe Thomson, Aaron Booth and Joe Whiteside have won first prize in a website design and photography competition run by the Chippenham Borough Lands Charity.

The friends from Chippenham's Abbeyfield School won £1,250 for winning the website competition and a further £500 in the photography competition while their teachers also picked up £500 for the IT department.

Trustees of the Chippenham Borough Lands Charity, which was set up in 1990, invited all three Chippenham secondary schools, Abbeyfield, Sheldon and Hardenhuish, to enter the competition to give their pupils first-hand business experience.

The pupils interviewed staff at the charity, completed field work and took photographs of the charity's assets before presenting their business plan to the charity’s trustees.

Despite the entries being of an exceptionally high standard, Phil Tansley, executive officer of Chippenham Borough Lands Charity, said Abbeyfield was the obvious choice.

He said: “Abbeyfield came in, they were the last ones we saw, and within seconds we saw it was a slick presentation. They had listened to the brief and ticked all the boxes. It was a unanimous decision.

“We wanted the students to have a real life experience in this competition to actually bid for our business. We have always looked to provide the schools with opportunities to get their students real life experience.

“For those students who are going out into the real world, this was a way for them to experience that.”