A Bristol pastor is seeking volunteers to restore a vandalised pavilion and renovate benches in their local park.

Andrew Yelland, 42, of Crofts End Church, is hoping that members of the local community will turn put in force with paintbrushes in hand to spruce up St George Park next week.

With the Friends of St George Park and the local Community Partnership Scheme, Mr Yelland hopes to further improve the park, which has recently seen a major overhaul of its play area.

Part of the scheme, named BenchAid, will see two large graffiti murals created on the back walls of the pavilion, which has suffered fire damage. Benches will be repaired and repainted.

Mr Yelland said: "For the last two years we have done Sunday Funday as a community festival in the park but this time we wanted to do something that would benefit the community for a long time.

"Crofts End Church is very much a church which wants to serve the community and be at the heart of the community in St George. We approached Trevor Ball at the Friends of St George Park and he was delighted.

"This is one way we thought we could support community cohesion and get people from the community involved.

"In years gone by the church was very much at the heart of the community and although that is not really the case anymore I believe the church still has a very important role to play in community matters.

"If people make a little bit of effort then a huge difference can be made. We started out wanting to renovate the benches and then decided we wanted to renovate the pavilion. It is a wonderful piece of architecture that has gone to rack and ruin and will restore it completely.

"We are going to use the back walls of the pavilion as canvases for street art by kids at the local skate park. It was being graffitied anyway so we thought so we wanted to have something that incorporated the kids so they felt they had ownership.

"The kids will be guided by two professional street artists and will be expressing their interpretation of forgiveness in the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son and unity through the medium of street art.

"We have ben leafleting the local area and already we have had people getting on touch saying they want to get involved and generally people are saying it's a really good idea.

"It's important to keep things nice in the park because if you don't keep on top of it the situation can become worse and worse and people don't use it.

"At the moment the pavilion is not very welcoming because there is graffiti and fire damage.

"We want to restore it so that people actually want to come and sit there for a few hours and just watch the world go by."

Sally Shenton, from the Friends of St George Park, said: "Trevor Ball has been the driving force behind improving the park and he and I are delighted of the extra help from the church. We are constantly having people asking what we are doing and many of them are impressed and wish to get involved. The pastor is very enthusiastic and it is all very heartening. We are all leading by example and St George Park is going to look beautiful."

BenchAid will take place from 9am-1pm between July 27 and July 31.