Villagers vie for a peak taste in food excellence

But after months of number-crunching, application-writing and old-fashioned digging, people in Tideswell have made their dream of turning the Peak District village into a byword for gastronomic excellence a reality.

It was announced yesterday that Tideswell is one of just six villages from across the country to be selected to appear in the BBC's new Village SOS TV series.

The series, to be broadcast next year, will follow each of the villages as they try to set up a new enterprise to save their communities and inspire a nationwide "rural revival".

Tideswell will now receive more than 400,000 from the Big Lottery Fund to get the Taste Tideswell scheme, which champions local produce, off the ground.

Chairman of the Taste Tideswell group, local bed and breakfast owner Pete Hawkins said: "We are absolutely delighted. It's fantastic news for Tideswell.

"A lot of hard work has gone into this and it is a tremendous tribute to everyone in the village who have got really behind it, although I realise that the hard work is now only just beginning as we put the plans for Taste Tideswell into action."

By capitalising on the village's strengths of producing local food, the project aims to increase sales, attract more visitors, create new jobs and protect Tideswell from further decline.

Like many rural communities, the number of shops and businesses in Tideswell has significantly diminished in recent years, and Mr Hawkins said the village was now at a "critical point".

The centrepiece of the Taste Tideswell scheme will be a community kitchen and garden, so people in the village who currently make their own produce can have a professional kitchen to work from.

It will also be used as a training kitchen for schoolchildren and for cookery courses for adults.

Work is already well under way on the kitchen garden, which has been developed on a run-down patch of land behind the church hall. Mr Hawkins said: "Taste Tideswell falls into five main categories – grow it, cook it, make it, sell it and share it.

"A nano-brewery – smaller than a microbrewery – will be used to teach people how to brew and also brew our own beers. The commercial kitchen will be there for businesses that want a hygienic premises to use, or for existing businesses to expand into if they haven't got the space already.

"Tying all this together will be an educational element where we'll work with local schoolchildren to teach them about the importance of healthy eating and growing and eating locally-produced food."

One of the main aspects of the scheme will also be marketing the Taste Tideswell brand, which food produced in the village can be sold under.

Getting the brand off the ground will be one of the main tasks undertaken by new "village champion" Tim Nicol who spent the bulk of his career working for Mars Foods.

Mr Nicol, from Stamford in Lincolnshire, will move into Tideswell for a year and use his experience in the food world to support the villagers in getting Taste Tideswell running.

Mick McGrath from the Big Lottery Fund said: "The Village SOS funding awarded today to Taste Tideswell is great news that will help ensure the future prosperity of the village and benefit the whole community." Mr Hawkins added: "It's fantastic. Last June we sat around saying 'what will we do' and we had all sorts of exciting ideas.

"Up until now it's all been dreams, so for me it's all about now making it into a reality.

"It's really captured the imagination of people in the village. I've had people stop me in the street, people who I've never seen before, saying they're behind us.

"It's absolutely brilliant."