FRUIT tree owners are being asked to allow volunteers to harvest their trees.

Residents with trees in and around the Westcombe Park area of Greenwich can sign up to a scheme designed to prevent fresh fruit from going to waste.

Tree owners would get first share of the fruit but the rest would be distributed to worthy causes around the area.

Nursing homes, schools and the Westcombe Society's jam-makers would all benefit from more fruit, as would the area's Sure Start centres, which provide childcare and family support.

Any bruised pickings would be turned into fruit juice, while volunteers would make sure they left enough on the trees to feed birds and ensure good soil for next year.

A spokesman for the residents' environmental group, Transition Westcombe, which has organised the scheme, said: "About 95 per cent of fruit in Britain is imported, including 70 per cent of our apples, with some coming 12,000 miles from New Zealand.

"They are often grown using environmentally damaging methods and even the British apples we buy in shops are transported a long way to and from distribution and packaging centres."

He added: “In the meantime our gardens have trees groaning with fruit we don’t pick, so harvesting it for local use makes perfect sense.

"Similar projects elsewhere have even identified as many as 50 varieties of apples in a small area, so imagine what we might uncover on our own doorsteps.”

If you would like to get involved as a fruit donor or volunteer picker, visit transitionwestcombe.blogspot.com or email growing.transitionwestcombe@gmail.com