A SCHOOL has received a donation of 15 trees from Cumbria County Council.

The Queen Katherine School at Kendal received the donation after residents wanted cherry trees planting along Shap Road to improve the look of the town.

Cumbria County Councillor Shirley Evans said: "There used to be a lot of cherry trees along Shap Road. Over the years they had to be taken down due to disease or site restriction reasons."

Cllr Evans applied to the Cumbria County Council's environment fund and was given funding for the trees.

"We looked at where we could plant them along Shap Road, unfortunately when we came to check due to restrictions and the fact there is a lot of utilities under the verges we found we couldn't plant them along the road itself," she said.

Cllr Evans then applied to the school to see if they would plant the trees along their boundary and the school said yes.

The student lead group is supported and facilitated by community garden co-ordinator Chris Eastman, who said initiatives like this are 'brilliant' for the pupils involved to get experience in positive action on the environment.

He said: "Planting trees is a really amazing thing to do, for the future and for now to improve biodiversity, to make the environment look better and to encourage people to take action and get stuck in.

"It's really important for young people to understand that they can take meaningful action especially on the environment and in school.

"In school is probably where these students have the most influence and they can see how working together they can make a real difference to the environmental footprint of the school."