ESSEX University has been handed a top environmental award for looking after historic parkland on campus.

The university has been given a Green Flag Award - which aims to set the standards for outdoor space - for the parkland on the Wivenhoe Park Colchester campus.

Judges said the university was one of the best sites around for environmental practices and said staff were fully engaged in what they were doing.

Summing up, the judges noted that the university’s “parkland and campus were pristine and looked amazing in the balmy summer”.

Grounds manager Rob Davey said: “We strongly believe a parkland can be green in more than one way and are committed to using green technologies to protect and promote the natural environment at Wivenhoe Park.

“I’m delighted the Green Flag Award judges highlighted our green initiatives and that our students and staff get to appreciate the splendid landscape we have.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Anthony Forster added: “I am delighted Rob Davey and his amazing team have been recognised in this way.

“Our landscape is an absolutely key part of who we are and how we live - together it is both the architecture and the landscape that shapes us.

“On our Colchester Campus it is the counterpoint of bold, daring and fierce architecture, located within a quintessentially English landscape that is unique.

“I am delighted the Green Flag award has recognised our stewardship of the relationship between the built and natural environment - and how we have maximised its potential.”

Essex’s Colchester Campus is based in the 230-acre Wivenhoe Park which, in 1816, was immortalised by landscape painter John Constable.

It has more than 2,800 trees and three man-made lakes which provide a habitat for water birds.