LEIGH'S town centre shopping centre has proudly announced their latest award achievements.

In the past seven years, the centre has achieved six internationally recognised Green Apple Awards for Environmental Best Practice, an International Excellence Award for their Corporate Social Responsibility achievements.

More recently, the shopping centre has been informed that it has been made a finalist in two categories of the Wigan Business Awards.

These categories include the 'Community Impact' awards and 'Sustainable Champions', with the winners to be announced at a glittering awards ceremony at The Edge, Wigan in November.

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Six of the centre's Green Apple Environmental awardsSix of the centre's Green Apple Environmental awards (Image: Spinning Gate)
These achievements are as a result of focused efforts on supporting the local community, working in partnership with local charities and community interest companies, maximising all opportunities for recycling.

Over 52,000 items have been donated and recycled, rather than them being processed via the centres waste stream, ensuring the most appropriate match with charities and organisations.

Thousands of items have been donated to care homes, charity shops, hospices, youth hubs, shoppers, allotments, and community interest companies.  

The shopping centre has been commended for this as many of these items would end up in landfill and would not benefit these groups or the community, who use them or sell them to charity shops.

Additionally, the centre has donated tens of thousands of pounds worth of mall commercialisation space to charities and community interest companies to help promote these organisations.

It has also helped charities to raise more than £15,213 by assisting with fundraising activities in the centre, and has facilitated a weekly collection of used coffee grounds from centre cafes to Lancashire Mining Museum for use in their garden projects.

Some of the Spinning Gate cleaning team with the Green Apple awardsSome of the Spinning Gate cleaning team with the Green Apple awards (Image: Spinning Gate)
Karen Cox, Centre Manager of Spinning Gate Shopping Centre said: "As a key stakeholder in the town, Spinning Gate are proud to give back to the local community as a thank you for shopping in centre with us. 

"It is vital to support our loyal community however we possibly can.

"These awards are a testament to the centre cleaning and security team who consistently work hard not only with their daily tasks, ensuring the centre remains clean, safe and secure every day for our shoppers to enjoy but continually going above and beyond, achieving these fantastic results.”