TALENTED young writers who wrote about their visions for Basingstoke have been recognised by the mayor during a special presentation ceremony.

Launched by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council in the summer, the letter from the future competition asked young people to imagine it was 2030 and to write a letter or draw a picture for their past selves about how the borough had become more sustainable and cut its emissions.

The mayor of Basingstoke and Deane Cllr Paul Miller and local bestselling author and environment journalist Lucy Jones were tasked with the difficult job of choosing the winning entries.

The five winners were presented with popular books about sustainability and climate change by the Mayor at a ceremony at the Civic Offices on Tuesday, November 15.

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Among the winners were five-year-old Óliver O'Mahoney-de la Pinta, whose letter and picture were about how he wants to see less littering and more recycling, and 11-year-old Holly Jack, who described a much-changed borough with almost everyone driving an electric car and many more wind turbines and solar panels.

While she too wrote about a greater number of solar panels as well as more eco-friendly homes, fellow winner 14-year-old Mia Brown’s letter also offered a warning about unpredictable weather and other effects climate change could still have in the future.

The effects of climate change including warmer weather in the future were also written about by Sophia Stott, aged 11, whose winning entry described how buildings had become more environmentally friendly and that, while over a million trees had been planted, more were still needed to help limit global warming.

And while some of the other winners wrote about buildings and solar panels, 13-year-old Michael Stuart instead described how people had made changes to how they live. Along with how widespread reuse and recycling had become the norm over the past eight years, his letter from the future also celebrated a new bike-sharing scheme that had helped to make walking and cycling a much more common sight.

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The mayor Cllr Paul Miller said: “From heavier rain to less food, climate change is a huge issue that will continue to affect everyone more and more if too little is done about it. This is true most of all for young people and that’s why we launched this competition, to find out directly from them how they think the borough should become more sustainable in the future.

“All of the letters and pictures we received were interesting and thought-provoking, but the winning entries chosen by Lucy and I gave us the most food for thought. I hope the books they received are as interesting and inspiring to them as their entries were to us.”

The selection of books presented included Losing Eden by co-judge Lucy Jones, as well as David Attenborough by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara, The Climate Crisis for Beginners by Andy Prentice and The Children of the Anthropocene by Bella Lack.

For more information and to read the winners’ entries, see www.basingstoke.gov.uk.