A young girl from Nine Elms has been named a regional winner in the National Young Writers’ Awards.

Laura Medvecova De Souza, a nine-year-old student at St Stephen’s C of E Primary School, fought off tough competition from children all over the region with her story ‘Journey to the Future’.

Organised by tuition provider Exploring Learning and presented by adventurer Steve Backshall, the competition is in its ninth year.

Over 10,000 children from all over the UK entered in an effort to win a trip to Disneyland Paris and £500 worth of books for their school.

This year’s theme was ‘The Future’ and children were tasked with writing a 500 word story set in 3017.

Robots were overwhelmingly the most popular characters and appeared in almost a third of the entries, while teleportation, rockets and jets were the common modes of transport.

Meanwhile, planet earth was the most popular location, followed by the Moon and Mars.

Steve Backshall said: “The quality of the stories was beyond belief.

“If I didn’t know this was a competition for young writers, I’d believe I was reading the scribblings of Isaac Asimov or Philip K Dick, and while there were elements from the great works of science fiction, every story was original, and had its own sense of individuality.

“What astounded me more than anything was that these young people had not only imagined future worlds, but imbued them with the conundrums of our modern planet.”