THE winner of the Community Business of the Year category in the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Business Festival Awards has a double reason to celebrate.

As well as walking away with the top prize in its category, the Borrowers Toy Library, in Malvern, has also recently received a massive £10,000 cash injection.

The money will be used to finance a washroom at the library, to wash the 5,000 toys that are loaned out to children, their parents, and carers.

Standards

Sue Hancox, project manager at the Barnards Green toy library, said the washroom would be a real boon.

"We will be able to wash the toys to the highest hygiene standards before they are lent out again," she said.

"Although all of our toys are washed anyway, the growth of toys means that it is hard for us to keep up with washing them by hand."

The toy library is run by volunteers and two trained staff members.

It now has 5,000 toys, including outdoor climbing frames, bikes, baby equipment and special needs toys.

The money, which came from the Early Years and Child Care Partnership and the European Social Fund, has also been used to buy a video camera, to help the library train child carers how to use the toys educationally with the children.

"We will set up the camera at pre-schools and play schemes and it will help people such as child carers with their training when we play the footage back," said Ms Hancox.