VOLUNTEERS helped to beautify a popular countryside haven yesterday.

Members of Saltburn Women's Institute (WI) joined Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council's countryside wardens to help plant a hedge behind the Woodland Centre, in Saltburn Valley.

The initiative, organised by WI member and Woodland Centre volunteer Ruth Steere, has been funded with a £50 grant from the CSV Action Earth 2007 campaign. It has also been supported by Morrisons Supermarkets, which has paid for more than 150 plants.

Neil Thirkell, of Saltburn Valley Woodland Centre, said: "It went very well. There has been a site which has recently been demolished to make way for a new development, so the idea was to make a natural barrier between the man-made area and the natural woodland."

Five countryside volunteers and five members of the WI helped seed various types of plants, including hawthorn, hazel, beech and blackthorn.