Paddington Bear has been voted Britain's best animated character of all time at the ninth British Animation Awards.

Brian Cosgrove, creator of Danger Mouse and Count Duckula, told the Today programme's Sarah Montague that he was "a little bit surprised" that Paddington Bear won the prize and that one of the current shows would have been in people's minds.

Oli Hyatt, chairman of the industry lobby group Animation UK, said that if you asked children they would have been plumping for what they are watching now, rather than adults who are voting on what they watched when they were young.

"People have huge emotional attachments to cartoon characters", he said, adding that they bring back "back warm and cosy feelings".

Brian Cosgrove said that if he could have voted he would have gone for Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit because of their "wonderful sense of humour".

Oli Hyatt said that the UK is "very good at producing very British, but very exportable, animation" in this country and that "people buy into the quaint handcrafted style of animation which is a lovely thing for children but also big business".

He pointed out that, pound-for-pound, British animation outsells film. "Thomas the Tank Engine takes in $1.5bn retail every year," he said.

Get in touch with Today via email , Twitter or Facebook or text us on 84844.