Award Winners Announced

The four gold winners in the awards, organised and sponsored by DIY Week, are:

· O'Keeffe's Working Hands hand cream from Gorilla Glue - a product which the judging panel described as addressing a real need, and which provided DIY retailers with a sales opportunity thye couldn't credibly exploit with conventional hand creams.

· The EcoStar water saving range from Oracstar; it's bang on trend in environmental terms, and as well as saving water, if the customer is on a water meter it will save money as well.

· The Sticky Dirt Bag from 100 Whats - a plastic bag which sticks to the wall and catches the plaster dust from a hole being drilled. The judges said it's a simple idea which delivers a real user benefit.

· Karcher's Window Vac, a combination of technologies. It brings together the idea of a window squeegee with a cordless vacuum cleaner to do something no other product does: vacuum a window clean and dry.

A further seven products were selected as silver winners:
· The Ladderbox from Ladderbox UK
· The Sta-Tite toilet seat system from Bemis
· Trollul's BBQ &Oven Power Pads
· Am-Tech's rechargeable nightlight torch
· Sticky-Off from Rustins
· And two products from Rolson: the universal power adaptor, and the 30LED multi-function lantern

As always, this year's award winners were selected by a panel of retail buyers: Jeff Abbott of Abbott's DIY, Samantha Rutter of North West Keys, John Horwood of Kennedy's Mica Hardware, and Steve Akers of Bira Direct.