OVER the last few months families from across Devon have been voting en mass in the highly regarded and prestigious Primary Times Reader Star Awards.

The awards have been designed to recognise favourable, local family friendly places and people, and now the results are ready to be announced.

Parents of children aged 4 to 11 across Devon were asked to complete a survey that appeared in this family friendly magazine that is distributed to 90% of primary schools across Devon and taken home directly to mum and dad via the children.

In addition, many families cast nominations online via the Primary Times website – www.primarytimes.net

Families were asked to answer a series of straight-forward questions which were designed to provoke unbiased answers, enabling Primary Times to verify what attractions and family entertainers are truly valued by its local readership.

The results provide an intriguing reveal of what’s tops with local families and gives the worthy winners a well-deserved round of applause.

Readers completed a survey that appeared in the Back to School and October magazines of Primary Times asking them to name their favourite family attraction; family eating place; indoor play centre; stately home or historical attraction; party venue/entertainer; craft activity place; kids’ school holiday camp, Halloween event and Christmas event.

There were individual winners from each category and an overall winner was chosen from the highest number of total votes across all categories.

This year, the much coveted, hotly contested and eminent family attraction category has been awarded to Devon’s Crealy Great Adventure Park.

It seemed that readers were mightily impressed with the range of facilities, variety of children’s activities and overall appeal of this attraction, which ticked all the right boxes for families.

Another tightly fought category was that of Party Venue and Entertainer. The diversity and quality of party entertainment in the area is first class which duly accommodates the varied needs of children with different tastes.

The engaging and humorous antics of Nutty Noah were enough to acquire the highest number of votes, which consequently enabled him to win this prestigious title.

Securing the winning place in the Family Friendly Eating Place category was Pennywell Farm’s Henny Penny cafe which was able to demonstrate an ability to serve up likeable meals for hungry children and parents.

As the British weather is predictably unpredictable, many families naturally gravitate towards indoor play centres so the importance of winning the Indoor Play award is seen as very insightful to many local businesses. This year Bear Feet scooped the top prize in the Indoor Play Centre category.

Steeped in history with fascinating educational stories to tell, Stately Homes and Historical attractions supply plenty of appeal to local families.

The picturesque surroundings and various family events contributed to the National Trust’s Killerton scoring the most votes in this group.

Arts and crafts activities rank highly as a favourite pastime for many children, and this too, was another competitive category. China Blue shone by winning the specialist Craft Activity Place.

To delve a little deeper and discover what families enjoy most, Primary Times introduced four new categories this year.

Primary Times’ readers certainly seem to enjoy seasonal activities and it was interesting to unravel the broad spectrum of answers to the best Halloween event and favourite Christmas/Santa event questions.

The spooky activities at Devon’s Crealy Great Adventure Park helped it win the most favoured Halloween event category whilst Otter Nurseries was chosen as the best place for its Christmas/Santa events.

Two other new categories were introduced this year – that of favourite Kids’ School Holiday Camp which was won by Escot, whilst Pennywell Farm was nominated to be the best place for a School Trip and won that category.

The overall winner of the Primary Times Reader Star Award in Devon has been presented to Devon’s Crealy Adventure Park.

This prestigious family attraction received the highest percentage of votes across a number of different categories which clearly demonstrated its capability to offer a varied range of children’s activities and its ability to accommodate the needs of local families.

Linda Edwards, Publishing Editor at Primary Times Devon said: “We are absolutely thrilled with this year’s response to the Reader Star Award survey and I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part.

"We applaud all the individual winners of each category and in particular we’d like to congratulate Devon’s Crealy on successfully winning the prestigious accolade of being the overall winner and congratulate their efforts in making their attraction such a hit with our readers.”