A HOUSE with a really "green" roof has won an award for its owner.

Whitecliff, in Loftus, is the self-built home of garden designer Maria Mountain and her husband, Tony Laycock.

The house's roof of plants that withstand drought is one of many environmentally-conscious features in a project the couple began in 1999 and finished earlier this year.

Their innovative work impressed the judges in the Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council design awards.

Whitecliff won a top award, along with the £10m expansion and renovation of the grade II listed Gisborough Hall Hotel and the refurbishment of Sir William Turner's Almshouses at Kirkleatham, near Redcar.

The five judges said Whitecliff was "in every way an exemplary scheme" and praised it as "a visionary building".

The Mayor of Redcar and Cleveland, Coun Madge Moses, and the chairman of the council planning committee, Coun Peter Spencer, presented plaques and certificates to the winners at a reception at Upsall Hall on Wednesday of last week.

There were also commendations for the Northumbrian Water pumping station at Skinningrove, a three-storey home in Windsor Road, Saltburn, and the Sure Start building at the Lakes, Redcar.