Today we can proudly reveal the winners of the inaugural Lowestoft Journal awards.

Earlier this month, we asked our readers to nominate their candidates for the awards' eight categories, such as pub landlord of the year and business owner of the year.

We then whittled down the army of entries to just two or three in each category and asked our readers to vote for them.

And our readers did not disappoint us as hundreds of votes poured in for each of the eight categories.

Lowestoft Journal editor Reece Hanson said: "We wanted to launch these awards because there are so many amazing people and groups in our area who deserve recognition for all of their tireless efforts throughout 2021.

"The awards, from the nominations to the voting, have been received brilliantly by our readers, with dozens of nominations and hundreds of votes pouring in.

"Everyone nominated in each category was a well-deserving winner and it must have been tough for our readers to pick between them.

"The community spirit across our towns and villages is very much alive and kicking after another tough year, and should give everyone great hope for 2022."

The winners are:

Pub landlord of the year:

Charlie Atkins, Odd Fellows

Business owner of the year:

Grant Bartlett, Lowestoft Distillery

Teacher of the year:

Harley Morgan, Woods Loke

Community hero of the year:

John Ward, Pakefield Community Group

Moment of the year:

Banksy's Great British Spraycation

Fresh idea of the year:

First Light Festival's Days of Summer programme

Uniformed hero of the year:

Joanne Bartlett, NHS occupational therapist

Young person of the year:

Joshua Freemantle

We will be profiling each of our winners online over the coming days.