IT was smiles all round when the winners of this year’s Design An Egg competition visited The Bolton News office to be presented with chocolate treats.

Kian Williams, aged six, from Little Lever, and Westhoughton’s Jessica Mason, aged eight, were chosen as the winners from more than 2,000 entries across Bolton.

They were presented with a chocolate egg with their winning designs made of special sweet coating from Whitefield chocolatiers Slattery’s, as well as toys from Beales.

Kian, who attends Masefield Community Primary School, designed a bunny-themed egg as his entry in the four to seven-year-olds category.

He said: “I mixed my own colours and used make-up pads to make the rabbit. It was really good to win.”

The Gates Primary School pupil Jessica was the winner in the eight to 11 category, and said she was pleased to have won the compet-ition.

She added: “The chocolate egg is brilliant. I don’t want to eat it yet — I’m going to save it and show it to lots of people.”

All of Bolton’s schools were invited to take part in the competition, with the entries whittled down to a shortlist by a panel of judges. The chosen designs were put to a public vote, with hundreds of people sending in their favourites.

Jenny Dawson, operations manager at the Beales store in Victoria Square, presented Kian and Jessica with toys from the store.

She said: “Kian and Jessica’s designs are pretty cool — they are very talented artists.”

Mike Crutchley, assistant editor at The Bolton News, said the standard of entries had been particularly high.

He added: “It was a tough decision for the judges to choose a shortlist as the stand-ards of entries was very high.

“I want to say a big congratulations to our worthy winners Kian and Jessica, and thank you to everyone who sent in their designs.”