If your shed is cluttered with old and broken garden tools there’s a great opportunity to have a clear-out and pass them on to prison workshops, where they will be given a new lease of life for use in the community.

Wyevale Garden Centres is involved in an initiative known as Tools for Change, in partnership with The Conservation Foundation’s Tools Shed.

Gardeners are invited to take along their unwanted garden hand tools to any Wyevale Garden Centre between May 9 and June 9 and in return they will receive a 10% discount on all new hand tools, including existing offers.

The unwanted tools will begin their journey of being refurbished by being delivered to three prisons – Dartmoor, Edinburgh and Wandsworth – where they will be reconditioned by prisoners before being distributed to schools, charities and community groups throughout England and Wales early 2017 next year.

“In this modern throwaway world it’s immensely important to reduce, reuse and recycle wherever possible,” said Roger Mclaughlan, CEO of Wyevale Garden Centres. “Our Tools For Change programme with The Conservation Foundation is not only helping to reduce the amount of waste from old, unwanted or broken tools, but also providing an opportunity for prisoners to learn valuable skills.”

Oli Bell, Senior Youth Worker at Leatherhead Youth Project Limited said, “We work with young people particularly from deprived communities, and one of our projects ‘Dig It’ sees our young people create and maintain an organic growing space. Through this project we help these young people learn to grow, produce and cook healthy meals.

“We were fortunate to receive a donation of Tools Shed tools of fantastic quality which enabled us to extend the work we do and increase the number of young people who can take part in our projects.”

Conservation Foundation Director David Shreeve added, “We recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of Tools Shed and what amazes me is that there is still no shortage of tools looking for new homes – and no shortage of schools and community gardens needing them.” If your local school or community group would like to receive free tools once they have been reconditioned, please contact The Conservation Foundation by emailing [email protected] .