YELVERTON War Memorial, Recreation Field and Village Hall Trust has completed the Rainwater Conservation Project at the village hall.

The project, developed by treasurer Tony Samuel, who often looks for ways to reduce overheads, noticed that a large sum of money was being spent on water, the majority of which can be accounted for by use of toilets.

Based on Dartmoor, where rain is a common occurrence, the committee thought it made sense to look at systems to collect and recycle rain water by piping the rain as it runs off the roof of the building into a large external tank and pumping it back into the hall to use as grey water.

Carole Thompson, chairman of Yelverton War Memorial, Recreation Field and Village Hall Trust, said: ‘Having obtained some costs for the system, we realised that we would need some capital funding. We could not undertake it without dipping too far into our reserves and we were successful in obtaining money from Dartmoor National Park Authority as well as the National Lottery.’

Tony Samuel added: ‘Though not initially conceived as a conservation initiative, rather as a way of saving money and keeping our charges down, the green aspect has attracted some interest, not least among the children of Penmoor Nursery who enjoyed seeing a big hole being dug just outside their playground!

‘It does make perfect sense to use the one natural resource that we have in such abundance.’

Though it is already up and working, the official launch of the system will be at an open day on September 19.