BEREGEN — the Bere Alston Regeneration Partnership Ltd — and the Cabin Childcare Centre are this week celebrating, after receiving good news from Big Lottery Fund's Awards for All scheme.

The group secured £9,800 to pay for the outdoor playspace for the new annexe currently being built on the hall.

The project was made possible after West Devon Homes, the owners of the garages and land adjacent to Beregen's new annexe at the rear of the parish hall, made the generous donation of a small strip of land to the parish in the early part of 2010.

This gave Beregen just enough space to add the outdoor playspace onto the childcare centre already within the building.

Sara Pike, secretary of Beregen, said: 'The outdoor playspace is a superb addition to the facilities we can provide for the children.

'It will allow the children the freeflow of movement between indoor and outdoor play and allow for better development of their gross motor skills.'

Sara said the space would have a garden area which will have a willow walk and place to grow vegetables and fruit, a hard tarmaced area for bikes and scooters etc and a softer surfaced area that would hopefully hold a climbing frame and slide.

'All this will happen within a safe contained space, which means the children won't have to go off-site to play outdoors and the staff don't have to fill in all the paperwork that an off site visit entails.

'It will be great for the children's learning and development.'

The £9,800 will pay for the design of the space, the groundworks, the fencing and gates to the area, the two types of tarmac surface and the brise soleil — the cover over part of the area to give the children some shade in strong sunlight or protection in rain.

Further information on the Beregen project can be found at http://www.beregen.org.uk">www.beregen.org.uk or on Twitter where they are known as BeregenUK.