GREEN is set to turn gold for north Norfolk villagers as they prepare to launch a money-making community composting scheme. Volunteers in Trunch have equipped themselves with a tractor, trailer, boxes for composting and bags of enthusiasm ready to start the project next month.

GREEN is set to turn gold for north Norfolk villagers as they prepare to launch a money-making community composting scheme.

Volunteers in Trunch have equipped themselves with a tractor, trailer, boxes for composting and bags of enthusiasm ready to start the project next month.

Over 70 householders have so far signed-up to take part in the scheme, which will see all their garden waste collected for free and converted into quality compost to enrich their allotments and flower beds.

The cottage industry will not only save participants the £32 annual cost of North Norfolk District Council's brown bin garden waste collection scheme, it will also generate cash for village improvements.

Norfolk County Council will pay the scheme just under £45 per tonne of green waste it collects and the proceeds of compost sales will also go into a kitty for community projects.

Villager Carole Lee, whose husband Neville chairs the scheme, has helped secure grants of £5,000 each from Awards for All and the Norfolk Community Foundation's Grass Roots fund, and £250 from the Griffon Area Partnership.

Some of the cash has been used to buy a second-hand Ferguson tractor and a trailer, and a new shredder is on order.

And North Walsham-based East Coast Plastics has donated 60 wooden pallets which are being converted into compost boxes, using planks given by scaffolder Robin Amis.

Trunch landowners Mr and Mrs Charles Cornish, and Mr and Mrs Ronald Compton, are letting the scheme use rent-free sites for equipment storage and compost production.

The idea took shape after about 39pc of respondents to a Parish Plan questionnaire expressed support for a composting scheme, which became one of the projects of the Trunch Village Society, formed about two years ago.

Committee members visited Denton, in South Norfolk, where a similar scheme is operating successfully, generating over £1,400 in its first two years.

Mrs Lee and fellow villager Michael Toye have completed a Master Composter's course at Holt Hall, learning the art of mixing different types of vegetation, turning, temperature and humidity control.

And an expert from Easton College will be visiting Trunch to teach volunteers how to use the tractor, trailer and shredder.

“It's really helped to unite our community,” said Mrs Lee. “We've got Church of England, Methodist and village hall people involved who might normally only meet in their own groups. There will be social events too so it's a way for people in the village to get to know each other.”

Organisers hope the first bag of compost will be ready for sale about six months after the initial garden-waste collection.