Python 2.7 Import error. Directory and filename conflict

[petcoo00]

Hello

Suppose you have this folder and file structure

/ProjectDir
    /library1
        utils.py
        somemodule.py
    /utils
        helper.py

Where in helper.py you have a class called XYZ.

Now suppose you try the following in somemodule.py:

from utils.helper import XYZ

an error will be thrown. Not terribly surprisingly this is due to the fact that python seems to be looking in utils.py, rather the utils folder.
The following does work however:

import imp
helper = imp.load_source('helper', './utils/helper.py')

so I figure that the files and folders are named poorly. Is there any other way though other than using imp to import from helper.py?

Thanks

Peter