LOTTERY loot plus the drive and enthusiasm of two young Eastleigh Millennium Volunteers has transformed a woodland at a junior school into a superb outdoor classroom.

Gemma West and Jennie Hurst put almost eight months of planning, hard work and dedication into creating the woodland education project at Bursledon Junior School besides successfully getting a £7,000 Millennium Awards grant from the Young People's Trust for the environment and Nature Conservation.

But the two 18-year-olds had people singing their praises when Netley-based television wildlife presenter Chris Packham and Eastleigh mayor Councillor Gillian Connell officially opened the project.

The two young volunteers, from Romsey, took a huge chunk out of a gap year after leaving Eastleigh's Barton Peveril College to carry out the scheme with help from other conservation volunteers.

Besides providing a woodland boardwalk, the scheme also included refurbishing the school pond and fitting a solar powered fountain plus planting a woodland meadow and building bird and bat boxes.

A bird box with an internal camera will also provide a bird's eye view of feathered life while Jennie and Gemma have also provided environmental education packs for teachers and children.