An innovative Bradford recycling group is expanding its operations thanks to thousands of pounds of lottery funding.

Bradford Repaint, based in Manningham, helps Bradford communities and the environment at the same time by collecting unwanted paint and redistributing it to community groups who need it.

The project, which began three years ago, moved into new premises at Springlodge Place, off Manningham Lane this week, and the Dulux dog, star of television adverts, was a guest at the opening.

The building has been financed with a £67,000 lottery grant from the Community Recycling and Economic Development programme.

The funding will also allow Bradford Repaint to start collecting paint from local council recycling sites in Bradford, Wakefield and Leeds.

The Priestly Centre, Park Primary West School and Bradford City Farm are among city projects to have benefited from paint provided by the charity.

In the last year, Bradford Repaint has distributed more than 20,000 litres of paint to 108 community groups across the district.

Bradford Repaint's re-launch was also celebrated by local children from Front-line Art group, who helped complete a mural to decorate the new offices.

The day also introduced new project manager, Karen Hutchinson. Mrs Hutchinson said: "The grant will be a big help in allowing us to improve and expand the project.

"We have used the money to buy a new van to help us collect and deliver paint around the city as well as allowing us to move to these larger premises.

"Our aim for the next few months is to become bigger and stronger and hopefully soon become self sufficient.

"The more people who contribute paint to one of our projects the better."

Bradford Repaint has drop off points in Queensbury, Keighley, Bingley, Bowling Back Lane and is soon to open one in Low Moor. Every year more than 377 million litres of paint are sold in the UK. 75 million litres of this paint is either thrown away or left in garages to become thick and unusable, enough to fill 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Bradford needs to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfill as landfill taxes are to increase over the next two years. In the last year Bradford Repaint has saved 24 tonnes of paint from being sent to landfill. For information, contact project manager Mrs Hutchinson on (01274) 737267.