STAFF at a speciality coffee shop celebrated after scooping a civic award.

The Durham branch of Whittard of Chelsea was judged to have the best shop window by the city's Mayor, Councillor Eileen Rochford.

She went on a window shopping tour of the city centre before naming the display, in Whittard's Market Place premises, as the winner of the competition run by the Durham City Forum.

The forum, a consortium of city traders and businesses, ran the Wow What a Window contest to tie in with the visit to Durham of the judges in the annual Britain in Bloom competition.

Traders were urged to do their bit for the city's cause by decorating their windows.

Whittard shop manager Julie Baker said it gave her and assistants Mary McGeever and Marlene Ardle a rare chance to be creative.

"We normally have set displays from head office, but we changed the promotion for the occasion and dressed it up a lot more than we would normally do. Head office were over the moon when we told them we'd won."

They stayed with the Britain in Bloom theme by adding some glass flowers to the display from the shop's stock.

Their floral creation clearly caught the eye of the Mayor, who presented Julie, Mary and Marlene with the prize bottle of Oudinot champagne.

"We're going to have a night out to celebrate and we'll start the night off with the champagne," said Julie.

City centre manager Chris Rawlinson thanked traders for their efforts in support of the bid for more Britain in Bloom success for Durham, a previous national winner.

Runners-up in the competition were the Sock Shop, in the Prince Bishops Shopping Centre, and Bear Bottoms speciality teddy bear shop, on Elvet Bridge. Oddbins off-licence, in Saddler Street, was highly commended.