A COMMUNITY recycling centre in Chagford that took to crowdfunding to try to secure its future has seen the hard work pay off with delivery of a new van.

Proper Job launched a campaign on website Indiegogo last December. The original aim was to raise £20,000 by January 6 for the purchase of a new van to enable it to carry on providing a service throughout rural Devon.

The centre intended to buy a Nissan Cabstar for £18,220 and with modifications, including a box, Proper Job logo and tail lift, the cost would have totalled £21,750.

Halfway through the campaign, the team at the centre found several second hand vans for sale at around £5,000. They changed the fundraising target of the crowdfunding campaign to make the target more attainable.

Securing a new van was vital so that the centre can maintain its retail income from the sale of high quality but bulky items.

To secure any of the donations pledged at all, Proper Job had to reach its £5,000 target by January 6 and the donation that pushed the total over that target was received on the last day possible.

In the end the organisation chose to buy an Iveco Daily box van with tail lift for a total of around £8,000. Offline donations to the campaign took the total to over £6,000 and Proper Job's sister company The Courtyard Café donated around £2,000 to help secure the van.

Alison Sallis, manager of Proper Job, said: 'We looked at ex-council vans but they had been used a lot and they were cage vans when really we needed a box van with a tail lift.

'Getting the van means we can provide a better service for the community and be more reliable. It is the first step up to getting better and is vital to help Proper Job secure its future.

'It means that we can get the kind of things important to our revenue, higher value items like Rayburns which people can't lift or transport themselves. We also can take hot boxes and composting boxes in the van and these two aspects are both large parts of our income.'

The news of the van purchase is a huge boost in the 20th anniversary year of Proper Job. To celebrate the anniversary the organisation is planning to hold a party for all Proper Job supporters in June.

To find out more about the work of Proper Job, visit http://www.proper-job.org">www.proper-job.org