SCOUT leaders have been helping nurses and elderly people across the county cope in the snow.

The Nottinghamshire Emergency Scout Support Team (NESST) have delivered more than 70 hot meals to elderly people trapped in their homes and transported district nurses across the county in Land Rovers so that they could keep appointments and deliver vital medication.

On Tuesday the group helped get a mini-bus carrying elderly people out of a ditch in Brake Road in Ollerton.

The volunteers also delivered sleeping bags and blankets to children trapped in the snow at the Elizabethan School in Retford and to the Ollerton rest centre where stranded motorists were taken.

Yesterday scouts between the ages of 14 and 25 were helping Age Concern deliver food parcels to vulnerable people.

NESST is made up of 33 scout leaders from across Notts who are called in to help by Notts County Council in certain situations, such as when the snow and icy weather struck this week.

The council first asked NESST to help on Tuesday.

Matt Rooney, Deputy County Commissioner for Nottinghamshire Scouts, said: "Scouting plays a huge part in the fabric of Nottinghamshire's communities.

"Helping people is clearly just as important now as it was when Scouting started over 100 years ago. Scout volunteers are ordinary people, brought together by scouting who think its really important to do whatever they can to help other people. Adults in Scouting work with youngsters to help them become better people and to play a part in their local community - and it's really important that adults lead by example."