TOOLS fixed by inmates at Dartmoor Prison will be used by young gardeners of Plymouth's Mayflower Community Academy when spring arrives.

Richard Leatherby, who runs The Conservation Foundation's Tools Shed project in the Westcountry, handed over a set of garden tools to the academy recently which had been repaired in the workshops of HMP Dartmoor. 

Tools Shed works with a number of prisons around the UK from HMP Edinburgh to Dartmoor Prison. 

Tools are collected from garden centres, including a number in Cornwall and Devon, and then repaired in prison workshops and the 'new' tools are given away to school and community groups.

As well as being an innovative community recycling project, Tools Shed gives useful skills to prisoners, helping prepare them for life after release.