The Guisborough-based agency was awarded the prize at a glittering ceremony at the Newcastle Gateshead Hilton for its campaign on behalf of leading recycling and waste management company SITA UK to raise awareness of the benefits of creating renewable energy from local waste.

The award-winning community relations programme was developed and managed by DTW in support of a planning application by SITA UK for a second energy-from-waste facility (EfW) in the Tees Valley.

DTW worked closely with SITA UK's in-house team to devise and implement a comprehensive PR and community relations programme that addressed all the issues and targeted key stakeholders.

Following the campaign, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council gave unanimous approval for the planning application and both the Tees Valley committee of the North East Chamber of Commerce and prominent local community figures declared their support for the project.

In selecting the winning entry, the judges said: "This sensitive topic was approached with understanding, using a series of techniques to proactively engage with the community and other stakeholders."

David Harker, Director of Planning and Property for SITA UK said: "It is important for us to work closely with local communities when we are planning new developments like this. DTW did a great job in working with us to manage our public and community relations in an extremely professional way and I congratulate them on the award."

Chris Taylor, Director of DTW said: "Winning this award is recognition of the team's hard work and creative thinking in what was a challenging brief. Communications in the recycling and waste industry can be complex and demanding so to achieve widespread support from councillors and community groups for this proposal was a fantastic result."

DTW also won a silver award for public affairs with its ‘Fairer Funding in Education' campaign for the f40 Group and was a finalist for the internal communications award for ‘Transforming Internal Communications in the NHS' with NHS Cumbria.

The CIPR Pride Awards showcase the best PR work being carried out across UK regions and set industry standards. In total, there were over 1,400 entries UK-wide this year.

The awards were instigated by industry magazine PR Week naming DTW as the biggest Public Sector PR Agency in the north of England, based on fee income.