The lucky winners of a free prize draw run by City of York Council as part of a recent consultation on parks and open spaces have been named.

They are: Miss Katie Shipworth of Ashville Street York; Mr Robert Worrall of Askham Fields Lane, Askham Bryan; L. Richardson of Albion Avenue, York; and Susan Hallam of Bankside Close, Upper Poppleton.

As part of an assessment of local needs for parks and open spaces, the council selected 5,000 households at random and sent them questionnaires to complete. The details of the 735 households that responded were entered into a free prize draw and four lucky winners were then chosen at random to received £25 worth of vouchers for the shop of their choice or leisure activity.

The council would like to thank all those who contributed to the study. The findings will be used to develop an open space strategy that will form part of the Local Development Framework (LDF). This will help to ensure that the provision of open space, sport and recreation facilities will meet the present and future needs of York residents; that priorities for the future and resource allocation are based on local need and aspirations; and a strategic approach to the provision of open space, sport and recreation facilities is adopted.

The strategy will enable the council to build on its good work, which has seen a number of York's parks awarded Green Flag status. Residents' satisfaction with parks and open spaces increased from 73 per cent to 78 per cent between 2000 and 2006, according to the council's most recent annual residents' survey.