A COLEG Gwent lecturer has raised more than £2,500 for Wales' mountain rescue teams and has recently completed an expedition across Wales' national parks.

Action man Tim Jarvis, a public services lecturer at Coleg Gwent's Ebbw Vale Campus, drove around Wales in a 30-year-old 4x4 on a 662 mile journey from his home in Abergavenny.

In just three days he went across the Brecon Beacons, Pembrokeshire Coast and Snowdonia national parks.

In his spare time Mr Jarvis is a water safety officer for the Abergavenny based Longtown Mountain Rescue Service and to date has raised more than £2,500 for the Mountain Rescue Benevolent Fund, which is designed to provide assistance to families when a mountain rescue worker is injured or killed.

Mr Jarvis a former soldier in the British Territorial Army said: "As volunteers we willingly give our time but the equipment needed for mountain rescues is specialist which means it is expensive.

"It costs around £30,000 a year to run our service, most of which we generate via sponsorship."

Students at Coleg Gwent's Ebbw Vale Campus have raised more than £600 for the mountain rescue team in the last year with a series of sponsored events ranging from leg shaving, cake sales and raffles to a night in a cave.

Coleg Gwent's new Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone will open in September.

The Longtown Mountain Rescue Team is part of the South Wales Search and Rescue Association and operates on behalf of Gwent, Dyfed Powys, South Wales and West Mercia Police to assist people who are injured, lost or missing in mountainous, lowland, rural and urban areas.

To donate visit www.justgiving.com/FirstBritishOverland.