A competition inviting people to sing their hearts out for the environment is seeing its deadline extended to give people more time to work on their entries.

Organisers of the annual Chesil Rocks music and arts festival held have come up with the Environmental Songwriting Competition to help showcase local talent.

The January 2 deadline for entries has been extended to April 22, 2020 – which appropriately enough is ‘Earth Day’.

Hilary Warren from Chesil Rocks said while there had been some good entries so far, the extended date will give more people the opportunity to get writing and take part.

Entries are sought that are original and likely to engage an audience and raise awareness about important environmental issues – for example climate change, deforestation, biodiversity or pollution.

Applicants may be amateur or professional, an individual or group, a school, business or other association and be of any age. The song may be of any genre – folk, pop, country, hip hop, rock, blues, reggae, rap, jazz, a cappella, operatic or classical, etc.

The competition is free to enter and applicants will be asked to submit an MP3 or video clip plus a copy of the lyrics.

Judges will select a number of finalists from the entries and invite them to perform their song. The overall winner will be invited to perform on the main stage at Chesil Rocks on Saturday, June 20 next year.

The winner will also scoop £1,000, generously donated by national construction training company SuperSkills Limited.

SuperSkills chief executive Peter Walker will be one of the judges, along with the Warrens’ daughter, singer-songwriter Sarah de Warren, plus two others yet to be confirmed.

Mrs Warren said: "Education is key and our Chesil Rocks judges will be looking for songs which effectively raise awareness of the current climate emergency.

"We have already received a number of great entries from a wide variety of people and others tell us they are still working on their song – so we are giving them more time."

Chesil Rocks is held every year at the Warrens’ home at Langton Herring. It supports Samaritans of Dorset – this year more than £10,000 was raised.

Details of the competition and entry forms can be found on the new Chesil Rocks website www.chesilrocks.com