Black Country flag to fly in London as festival organisers shortlisted for national award

The festival is in the running for the community engagement campaign of the year award, which is handed out to public and private sector projects, at the PRmoments Awards 2015.

Organisers will go up against competitors such as Aldi and Barclays at the ceremony in London on Wednesday.

The festival was organised by Dudley Council in partnership with the community.

Councillor Pete Lowe, leader of the council, said: "For the work we carried out last year to be recognised at a national level in this way really is true recognition of what a fantastic achievement the first ever Black Country Festival was.

"We worked closely with the community to support them and ensure we had a month-long festival of events to show pride in where we are from.

"This news has given us all a boost as we start preparations to make the 2015 festival even bigger and better."

Plans for this year's festival are already in motion, with events due to take place in Dudley, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Gornal, Pensnett and Wall Heath in July.

Festival founder Garry Sawers, who goes by the name Black Country Gaz, is again joined by Steve Edwards, who runs Facebook site theonlywayisdudley, and events organiser Dave Brownhill, together with Councillor Lowe.

Alongside them this year will be councillors Patrick Harley, Paul Brothwood, Will Duckworth and Ken Turner.

Steve Edwards, chairman of the Black Country Festival organising committee, said: "The community is hugely grateful for all the work of Dudley Council staff and councillors who helped make the first ever Black Country Festival such a success, whilst ensuring the community continued to be given the freedom to lead the event.

"We worked hard to make the first ever festival happen last year but now we're all determined to build on the success and make this year even better.

"It is great that we've got more people involved in the organising and planning and we've already had interest from all over the area from people keen to get involved with their own community events to celebrate the Black Country."