THE SEVERN Area Rescue Association will receive more than £800 thanks to the sale of redundant plastic containers.

Chepstow fabric engineering company Architen Landrell sold them off after they were returned from "a prestige project in London where they were filled with water and acted as ballast on a structure being built by the company.

SARA is Architen Landrell's charity of the year.

The company's marketing co-ordinator Victoria McKenzie, a SARA crew member, said: "We sold 160 water barrels and in total we raised £830 which is an amazing sum to go to SARA.

"We're really pleased to have made such a substantial donation."

The sale was supposed to have lasted for four hours but the remaining barrels were sold in less than 60 minutes.

Victoria said: "There was an article about the sale in last week's Chepstow Review and on the day it appeared the phone was red hot with people wanting to reserve barrels.

"So many people wanted to buy them that we had to put them on a waiting list.

"We asked people what they were going to use them for and the most popular were water butts, storage bins, horse jumps, raft building and garden planters.

"Alex Heslop, a technical consultant at Architen Landrell is going to use his to run fresh water through an outboard engine on a boat."