An Ashby company says it wants to give something back to the community in the shape of a new woodland space for the area.

We Shred It is based at the Old Police Station in South Street and provides a shredding service to dispose of confidential paper and documents for companies and individuals.

The company has seen an increase in business during the lockdown months with people increasingly keen to declutter their properties.

But now We Shred It wants to do something of benefit to the town and its residents.

Co-director David Foster explained: "Shredding confidential waste is what we do, but we have a bigger vision and we want to get enough money together to buy some land.

"We want to create a woodland area and a full recycle process.

"Once we get the land in place, we would then look for contributions in terms of input.

"That would be from local schools, colleges, as to what trees we plant and how we maintain it.

"So hopefully, we'll create education, jobs and a nice place for the community to enjoy as well.

"There is a link to the National Forest with this - we actually do their shredding!

"We are looking at every ounce of resource we can find while we build that money up.

"I think we're very experienced in business, but when it comes to buying land, we're not.

"The sort of thing we'd be looking at would be disused petrol stations, they'd be nice converted into woodland space.

"We're looking at the first ones of these being in Ashby, and then in Burton and every town we go to - we do intend to be national.

"In Ashby, we'd hope to have this up and running by the end of 2024.

"It's all very well having a business, but they also have to change, we don't just want to be known for commercial shredding, but we'd like to be able to say we also buy land and give it back to the community as woodland."

We Shred It have now joined up with Ashby Nub News as one its sponsors.

Co-director Charlotte Moyle added: "We were a security cleaning company to start with and the shredding took over from that.

"But we're now Ashby based with a shredding depot in Burton.

"We deal with both residential and business, it's everything from regular collections to big, ad hoc, jobs.

"A lot of offices have gone for the console options, we do monthly collections and shred documents off-site.

"In lockdown, demand has increased for residential shredding with people working from home and collecting paper.

"It's an easy system, you buy the bags online and we post them out, then collect them and shred the contents.

"With GDPR, that has pushed people towards shredding documents securely and properly."

But the company remains personal and David said: "We're shredding the cost of shredding."

Nub News CEO, Karl Hancock, said: "We Shred It is an ideal partner to work with because, like Nub News, the local community is at the heart of what it does.

"Without companies like We Shred It, we wouldn't be able to survive. This sponsorship enables us to provide news and what's on listings without any clickbait.

"We also provide classifieds, property, jobs and live travel."