Ref. 27939-3SWINDON businesspeople have helped bring smiles to hundreds of Swindon children, after raising almost £7,000 for charity.

Members of the Swindon Business Cares for Children group, which comprises firms from across Swindon including the Evening Advertiser handed the NSPCC a cheque for £5,650 during a presentation evening held at the Blunsdon House Hotel earlier this week.

The cash was raised through a gruelling 86-mile trek along the full length of the Ridgeway from Marlborough to Tring, Hertfordshire in June.

Alan Fletcher, chairman of the economic development company Great Western Enterprise, is the group's treasurer.

He said: "Everyone has worked really hard to raise this cash and many of us still have the blisters to prove it."

The group was formed in 1992 and played an instrumental role in establishing the NCPCC child protection centre in Victoria Road, Old Town.