Cornwall-made toy bus is a ‘hopeful’ success for pupils at Looe School

A new wooden play bus has been presented to a Cornish school for children to play with after their old bus crashed.

The bus for Looe Primary School was made by Looe Shedders, part of a global Men’s Sheds movement that started in Australia 30 years ago.

The group used materials and tools donated by local businesses to make the bus, which took six months, organizers said.

Meanwhile, the groomsmen are fundraising so they can have their own shed as they currently use St Martin’s Hall Church in Looe.

Peter Heywood, publicity officer for Looe Shedders, said members come from all sorts of places and include women.

“Many of them have some sort of background in technology; they worked (by) building things”.

“Often that type of person needs to find an outlet for their creative juices after they’ve retired,” he said.

Group president Chris Roy said because members didn’t have their own shed, it was difficult to build outside because of the bad weather.

The group need to raise £10,000 to start building a shed.

Mr Roy said: “After doing a few community projects we were approached by the school to say we could do something for them… replace their play bus which was two pallets bolted together with some plastic seats.

“I thought we could do a lot better than that and we did.”

The children said the new bus was “amazing”.

One student, Charlie, said he wanted to be the driver and was going to school on a holiday in Brazil.

Head teacher Janine Waring said: “I am so grateful. It’s so hard to find a good resource for children that it can be very expensive.”

She said she’s going to hold a staff meeting on the new bus and she’s going to be the driver – because she’s the manager.