THE futures of Tavistock Community Pre-School and Tavistock Country Bus are looking even brighter and ‘bigger’ than ever — after both organisations received grants from the Big Lottery Fund.

The pre-school is to receive £5,320 to provide sessional help for ‘risky play’ sessions, which encourage play outside. Pre-school manager Mary Bradford said keeping staff-to-children ratios high would ensure the children’s safety while they become more active.

She said: ‘This money will help us to keep providing the high quality care we have provided up to this point as well as provide new opportunities for our children. It means we can provide high staff ratio for “risky play” opportunities for events off-site like farm visits.

‘Health and well-being is really important to what we do. We want children to be active, to discover and explore and push themselves to try new things. This money will help us allow them to do that, to keep active and getting back to being children.’

Tavistock Country Bus has received £8,295 to install seatbelts on its bus and invest in marketing. The hope is that the seatbelts will make those using the service feel safer and prevent any injury, while the marketing will reach people who may have been put off the country bus service in the past due to the lack of seatbelts.

Derek De Glanville, chairman of Tavistock Country Bus, said: ‘Everyone using the country bus will feel a lot safer and we hope it will lead to more people using it. In that sense the grant is a double-edged sword.

‘It is something passengers have asked for for a long time and while we are not legally obliged to have seatbelts, it is something we have wanted to do if we could secure grants like the Big Lottery Fund and the locality grants we received from our county councillors.’

l People are being invited along to see the relaunch of the country bus in Bedford Square today (Thursday) from 11.45am to 1.15pm.