A COUPLE who grew increasingly concerned about safety issues around their beloved local church are delighted to have secured funding to improve it.

Bert and Dot Stredder, of Marion Close, Hayes, have been worshipping at St Edmund's Church, in Edmund's Close, Yeading, for more than 20 years.

During the last few years the fence which marks the boundary of the site has broken to the point of being practically non-existent.

The site is a popular shortcut for walkers and when the area started to become popular with gangs of youths Mr and Mrs Stredder had seen enough.

Through Hillingdon Council's Chrysalsis Fund for environmental improvements they managed to obtain £1,500 which is going to provide a new fence.

Mr Stredder, 77, said: "We had meetings with our MP, John McDonnell, and with the vicar Richard Reeves last year where we agreed to apply for Chrysalis funding as we had got nowhere up to then.

"We had been trying for 10 years and in the meantime we were seeing drug dealers and all sorts of undesirable people hanging around the church.

"Vandalism was on the increase too as there was nothing stopping people from accessing the whole site whenever they wanted."

The couple were invited to the civic centre recently to receive the good news about their bid and to learn more about the Chrysalis scheme.

Mr Stredder said: "I was impressed by how much can be achieved by ordi-nary people when they put their minds to it. We heard all about the various projects so far and a lot of good is being done with the money.

"We haven't set a time frame for getting the new fence yet, but we hope to have meetings with our council liaison to sort out when we can begin."