A DIY firm has brought a little colour into the lives of Horwich and Blackrod schoolchildren.

The Focus DIY store on the Middlebrook Retail Park has given away surplus supplies of wallpaper worth £4,500 to schools.

Children were presented with five cages full of wallpaper rolls of different designs and colours. Some of the wallpaper was from the top end of the market, normally being sold at £15 a roll.

The wallpaper was taken from a selection of ranges including Graham and Brown, Holden and HA Interiors.

Focus spokesman Honor Derby said: "We were going to throw the rolls away because we are getting new ranges in but decided that we would rather give it to local schools as we wanted to give something back to the local community."

The schools, Scot Lane End Primary, Claypool, St Katherine's, Horwich Parish and St Mark's in Wigan, will be putting the wallpaper to good use. It will mainly be used for arts and crafts.

Isabel Ormrod, headteacher of Scot Lane End School said: "We are very grateful to Focus DIY. It will be a valuable resource for the school. Some of the kids will use it for drawing on and we will use some of it to mount displays in the school.

"I joked with the kids that I would be wanting them to decorate the entire school once we got the wallpaper."

Glenys Evans, headteacher of Claypool School said her children will use the wallpaper to create large murals.

She said: "Some of the classes in the early years will have great fun cutting up pieces and other youngsters will enjoy painting them."