A GROUP of young people studying land management joined forces with a team at Carhampton Community Orchard as part of a countywide initiative to address youth unemployment.

In Bridgwater and West Somerset, an estimated 500 young people aged 18 to 24 are out of work, and 140 of them have been looking for jobs for over six months.

This is one of the issues being addressed by Somerset Rural Youth Project (SRYP) which works with 16 to 24-year-olds who are not in full-time education, employment or training.

Among other things, SRYP provides a range of training programmes and creates opportunities to take part in a wide range of positive activities – including conservation.

So Carhampton Community Orchard invited SRYP’s Barney Simmons to bring a group of young people to carry out some management work in the orchard.

The group included four who are currently on Barney’s land management course in the Quantocks. They worked on enlarging tree guards, weeding around saplings and reducing this year’s enormous pile of prunings to manageable proportions.