DUMBLETON Cricket Club has a vested interest in hoping for wall-to-wall sunshine this summer.

Solar panels fitted onto the roof of the club pavilion will not only provide an environmentally friendly way of producing its own energy, but the club will be able to sell any surplus power back to the national grid.

Funding for the project was secured from the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Gloucestershire Environmental Trust.

The initiative was proposed and then overseen by ground manager Matt Venner who said: “We are really grateful to the two organisations who both made significant contributions to the funding of this project.

"Dumbleton is such a picturesque ground that we were initially a little concerned about how the panels would look and whether they would survive being hit by a cricket ball. But in the end we gained the reassurances we needed and we are delighted with the results. "The panels will save the club a lot of money each year, which can now be spent on supporting the activities of the club, including our thriving junior section”

The panels are in place in time for the new season which gets underway on April 18. The rest of the ground and pavilion was spruced up to host a Natwest CricketForce day at the weekend when more than 50 members, along with two members of the Gloucestershire County Cricket squad turned up to lend a hand.