SOME of the county's most-loved green spaces are vying to be crowned among the best in the country.

Eight Oxfordshire parks are up for a People's Choice Award in the Green Flag Awards, and need your votes.

The Green Flag scheme recognises and rewards ‘well-managed parks and green spaces’ up and down the country.

Seven parks in Oxford and one in Abingdon have previously been given green flags and are now up to become the ‘People’s Choice’ of parks – a list of the public's top 10 across the country.

In Oxford St Sepulchre’s Cemetery, Cutteslowe and Sunnymead Park, Bury Knowle Park, Hinksey Park, Florence Park, Blackbird Leys Park and the Hill End Centre are up for awards.

In Abingdon, the Abbey Gardens have been nominated.

Hill End Centre service manager Selby Dickinson said the team was delighted the site in Eynsham Road has been nominated in the People's Choice Awards.

He said: "We are delighted and honoured that people who have used the centre in the past have recognised the work that we do on site.

"There is a lot of dedication and commitment that our volunteers, site manager and line manager put in.

"Each week we have about a dozen volunteers, with about 30 in total on our books of all ages."

The Hill End Centre is a 62 acre site nestled in the countryside west of the city and provides, classrooms, meeting, residential and training spaces for the community and became its own trust in June.

There are 1,797 Green Flag Award parks across the country and each one is eligible for a People's Choice Award.

Voting is open until September 30 and the winning parks will be announced on October 11.

The Green Flag Awards began in 1997, when the state of UK parks was fragile due to decades of underfunding.

Various schemes over the past 20 years have helped establish green spaces in the UK.

Last month, the green flag licence was renewed for another five years by Parks and Green Spaces Minister Marcus Jones.

The awards can be won by any public green space including parks, cemeteries and crematoria, recreation grounds, canals, reservoirs, educational campuses, hospital grounds, housing estates, nature reserves and allotments

The awards are run on behalf of the government by Keep Britain Tidy, an environmental charity that campaigns for people’s right to live and work in a place of which they can be proud.

To vote, go to greenflagaward.org.uk and search for your favourite park.