A SCHEME to improve land at Dartmoor Prison for wildlife is celebrating the end of its first year.

Moor Trees, a woodland charity, and the prison team have been working together for a number of years, enabling prisoners undertaking training to apply their skills to practical tasks.

Prisoners have been involved in growing and planting native trees and designing and building new ponds to improve the local environment.

Last year the partnership was successful in a bid for £48,000 from Biffa Award, a multi-million pound scheme managed by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, which utilises landfill tax credits donated by Biffa Waste Services.

The funding has supported a number of improvement works on the land surrounding the prison, but especially the renovation of the old Victorian reservoir. This had become choked with silt and developed a leak.

Moor Trees director Graham Burton said: 'We needed to get the reservoir back to a healthy state before it dried out completely.

'The prison authorities were really supportive and together we came up with the idea to not only restore it, but also open the area to public access in the future.'

Biffa Award has been very supportive of the project, enabling the reservoir restoration and starting the task of improving paths and fencing ready for future public use.

The prisoners have benefited from the project, applying skills in land management work for which the prison training programme had prepared them.

Moor Trees and HMP Dartmoor are now working on the next part of the project, to upgrade access to the area in preparation for amenity use by the local community and visitors.