Volunteer Officer Cadets from the Britannia Royal Naval College have been helping prepare the town for the Spring season.

At the end of their 30weeks of training, they have been assisting volunteers from Dartmouth Green Partnerships. Traditionally, this period, between the end of training and Passing Out has been contributed to an out-reach programme.

The programme enables cadets to give something back to the community in which they have lived during their training.

They worked on the potager, painting the sheds at the greenhouse site, digging up a huge dead shrub root and sorting the compost. In Royal Avenue Gardens they repainted the red bridge and fence posts of the Japanese style garden, removed dead cordyline leaves and spread a truck-full of bark compost on the English Cottage Garden.

In Coronation Park, they spread bark, mulching the newly planted area near the Higher Ferry and removed dying daffodils from the river planters ready for replanting. Elsewhere in town they helped in Longcross Cemetery and Beacon Park.

Chairman of DGP, Stevie Rogers, said: “We are hugely grateful for the help given to us by the BRNC cadets as we are quite a small group of volunteers with a lot of work to do creating planting displays for the summer. In the autumn the cadets helped us plant more daffodils up College Way which have been delighting those driving to and from town for the past few weeks.

“DGP has put up a small temporary greenhouse, thanks to the help of one of our volunteers, Chris Sulis. It is on the site of what will be the big pyramid greenhouse on the riverfront site. This is enabling us to get on with our work, raising plants for our displays to save costs.

“We need to raise around £100,000 for the pyramid and have been waiting for the asset transfer from South Hams District Council to Dartmouth Town Council so that we can get a lease on the site. This will make grant applications much easier. Around £5,000 has been raised for the pyramid, including a generous donation of £1,000 from the Dartmouth & Kingswear Society. We hope to launch our fund-raising in earnest soon.

For further information contact DGP chairman Stevie Rogers: [email protected]