CHARITIES will benefit when people from the Chard and Ilminster area give their old and unwanted garden tools to a garden centre as part of the Tools Shed programme.

Monkton Elm Garden & Pet Centre at Monkton Heathfield in Taunton is accepting trowels, spades, hand and garden forks, hoes, garden rakes and lawn rakes.

The tools will be given to the Tools Shed initiative and will be repaired at Her Majesty’s Prison Dartmoor.

Garden centre shop and duty manager Steve Searle said: “We’ve decided to keep our Tools Shed programme running as it has been extremely popular in the past and lots of worthy causes have benefited from it.

“The programme is run in conjunction with The Conservation Foundation. We collect the tools and then they are picked up by the foundation and repaired in a number of UK prisons.

“Once they have been refurbished we will call for people to put their schools or organisations forward to receive some for free.”

Tools powered by electricity or petrol-driven, and secateurs cannot be accepted.

Steve added: “Just drop off your unwanted tools at the reception desk inside the main entrance and we will organise the refurbishment from the Conservation Foundation.”