A mother and son from Wirral have been awarded first runner up in the song category at the Institution of Civil Engineer’s (ICE) first-ever creative arts festival

Joanna Bateman and son Fox, aged seven, were among those taking part in The Ikigai festival, held on October 14 at the institution's London headquarters.

Joanna and Fox wrote and performed a song titled Nature’s Engineers for their entry, which told the story of the similarities between civil engineers and ‘nature engineers’, which include spiders, ants and beavers.

They were announced as finalists and awarded first runner up in the song category at the festival.

Joanna said: "When I read there was a competition with the ICE that involved songwriting, I thought it would be great for Fox and I to give it a go.

"To create something together was a lovely experience for us and then to get to the final was absolutely brilliant.

"Writing the song and performing has really boosted Fox's musical interest and he's now keen to develop his keyboard playing skills so we can write more music together."

The competition was open to teams of two, made up of one person aged 18 or under, and one person 18 or above.

The teams needed to submit an entry inspired by ICE President, Anusha Shah’s presidential theme Making connections for a nature and people-positive world', which encourages engineers to keep nature and people at the heart of infrastructure solutions.

The categories were: poetry, songs (with or without instruments), photography, a one-minute short film, and painting, drawing or collage in 2D (excluding digital art).

The competition received a total of 80 entries, with just 16 making it to the finals.