Pictured: (l-r) Peter Bedford (Lincolnshire Advisory Panel for WREN), Ray Cucksey in the digger (chairman of Branston & Mere District Counsil), Mark Willcox (Branston) & Peter Lundgren (Parish Council Vice Chair)

The potato people at Branston Ltd have 'teamed up' with Waste Recycling Environment Ltd (WREN) and donated money to Branston Parish Council to develop a new sports field.

The Lincoln site of the UK's leading potato supplier has donated over £30,000 towards the new playing field, which will be based in Branston village. Work has now started on the site and is due for completion at the end of October.

The new field will be a multi use games area, which will replace the existing one which has been there for 20 years. The new pitch will be fully enclosed and there will be floodlights so that the area can be used in the winter. 

Branston was approached by members of Branston Parish Council who needed to source additional funding to complete their project. 

Sarah Stead, clerk to Branston & Mere Parish Council, said: "The need for a new playing field came to light a few years ago, when we realised we couldn't use the field in the evenings during the winter months because there weren't any floodlights. We tried to rig up our own, but it didn't work.  We then heard about WREN funding from a neighbouring village, and thought we'd give it a try. We'd heard that Branston was supportive of local projects and were delighted when they also agreed to contribute towards the field. Now work is starting on site, we can't wait to see the finished result."

Mark Willcox, development director at Branston, says: "We believe that it is really important to put money in to the communities where our factories are based, so when the parish council approached us about the playing field, we were happy to be able to support it. We thought it was a great initiative, and one that would benefit so many young people in the area. We're really keen to get behind initiatives that promote health and wellbeing, and this really fitted the bill."

WREN is a not-for-profit business that helps benefit the lives of people who live close to landfill sites by awarding grants for community, conservation and heritage projects.

Sarah Gosling, WREN's grant manager in Lincolnshire said: "We receive a large number of applications from village organisations looking for funding for particular projects and it can be challenging to pick out individual ones. They have to be beneficial to the local area and we look at application forms to assess whether the project will deliver improvements to the local community as a whole, rather than just individuals. We felt the sports field really filled these requirements and look forward to seeing the area take shape now work has started on site."

Ray Cucksey, chairman of Branston & Mere Parish Council, adds: "The village. along with neighboring communities, will at last be able to enjoy the use of an all weather facility on their door-step instead of having to travel quite some distance for training. We hope that the community will enjoy using this magnificent facility."