A MENTAL health charity is helping Durham Cathedral to make the peninsula area of the city more bird-friendly.

The cathedral’s woodlands and riverbanks team is working with the city’s St Margaret’s Centre, to create bird feeders for the cathedral grounds.

The work is funded with grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, The Banks Community Fund, Biffa Group and The Friends of Durham Cathedral.

St Margaret’s Centre manager, Rob Chatwin said: “One of our volunteers is a very experienced green woodworker and he has been leading sessions with our service users in the woodwork shop.

“The service users love activities like this because it gives them a real sense of satisfaction and achievement knowing that their handiwork is being put to good use in such a beautiful place.”

Pam Stewart, woodlands project officer of the woodlands and riverbanks team, who commissioned the work, said: “We are really pleased to be working with the St Margaret’s Centre on what we feel is a mutually beneficial project.

“It is very befitting of our Christian ethos as an organisation that we try to enrich the lives of local people and look after the natural world around us and that is what this project is all about.

“We are very grateful to the St Margaret’s Centre and their service users for reusing the wood from our site to create the feeders and we hope that they in turn will enjoy coming to watch the bird life in the woodland around the cathedral.”