STAFF at a Bradford-based building society have spent a record-breaking 11,800 hours of their time volunteering for charities and carrying out community projects in the past year.

Yorkshire Building Society, which has its head office off Rooley Lane, offers every member of its 4,600 staff 31 hours of paid leave every year to help out at a charity or good cause of their choice through its volunteering programme.

Staff based in Bradford spent more than 3,300 hours in 2015 volunteering to help various good causes, including doing work at the Marie Curie Hospice on Maudslay Street, at Bowling Park Wood, at Oxenhope Primary School in Keighley and forming a partnership with The Southfield Grange Trust.

Louise Neil, the building society's community manager for volunteering, said: "At Yorkshire Building Society we are committed to the communities we serve and I am so proud that we have been able to spend so much of our time helping organisations and charities that really make a difference.

"As an organisation our most valuable asset is our colleagues who have a wealth of experience and skills to share with others, and I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to us breaking our record number of hours of volunteering."

One of the projects its volunteers have been involved in is a new three year partnership with The Southfield Grange Trust in Haycliffe Lane, which aims to inspire students' creativity and boost their job prospects.

The partnership forms part of the new Make the Grade network, created by Ahead Partnership, a Leeds-based social enterprise that connects businesses and communities to create social and economic change.

David Jowle, communications manager at The Southfield Grange Trust, said: "YBS has provided our students with preparation for working life so they can understand the challenges they face in the workplace.

"They put on a careers fair for the Years 9s and did trial interviews for the Year 11s, and also offered placements at the head office.

"Our partnership with YBS has been really positive and proved beneficial in preparing students for working life, and it reflects really well on YBS, and it helps it fulfil its commitment as a leading employer and leading business in their area, they set a good example and really engage with the community."

YBS volunteers also helped to renovate an allotment at Oxenhope Primary School near Keighley, by putting up fencing and raised beds, turning over the soil, cleaning the greenhouse and tidying up the area so that the school's pupils could begin growing their own fruit and vegetables.

The school's head teacher Kathrine Nutting thanked the hard work volunteers put in to transform the allotment from an abandoned mess into a suitable place for children to learn.

She said: "When we first took over our allotment it had not been touched for several years, and would not have been safe for children to go into to do outdoor work.

"A parent got YBS involved and they cleared the site for us of rubbish, weeds, and fencing and moved a shed and started work on the greenhouse to get the allotment ready.

"The children are absolutely loving the new allotment and are bringing in vegetables to plant in their beds; each class has its own raised bed so they can decide what they want to grow, and the Year 2s have already started a science project in their area which they are really enthusiastic about.

"Projects like this and the help from YBS are vital because outdoor learning offers children real context, we get them outdoors as much as we can and would like to that YBS for the work they did."

A charity which benefitted from the work of the volunteers was the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford.

YBS employees helped out with the gardening at the hospice, planting flowers and improving the environment of the garden to make it more pleasant for people staying there.

Katie Grinter, community fundraiser at the Marie Curie Hospice, said: "Yorkshire Building Society colleagues very kindly donated 580 hours of their time at our Bradford hospice last year.

"They helped out with gardening in the grounds and also painting and decorating to help keep our patient areas bright, and the garden is specifically a really important feature at our hospice and acts as a sanctuary for our patients, their families and staff."

Volunteers also gave the Bradford Community Environment Project a hand by helping out with maintenance work at the wood area of Bowling Park.

The BCEP, which is receives Heritage Lottery funding, maintains green spaces in Bradford, and staff from YBS have dedicated their time to helping it with its work.

Jen Scott, of the BCEP, said: "The staff do litter picking and created a 'dead hedge' in the wood area, and also cleared it so people can get in and to make it a nice place for people to go.

"They also built a fence for us at the wood, we provided the materials and the staff put the fence up.

"They have helped a lot and the community benefit from their time improving the local green space where residents can visit."

The YBS volunteer scheme is continuing this year.