The organisers of a charity Christmas tree recycling service are aiming to raise over £30,000 for The Myton Hospices and Pass The Smile For Ben this year.

Coventry Charity Christmas Tree Collection, which last year raised nearly £17,000 for the same two charities, is taking bookings to collect old Christmas trees in the new year.

For a small donation households in Kenilworth and elsewhere in Coventry can have their trees collected from their homes between January 8 and 10 2022.

All the collections are made by a team of volunteers.

The recycling scheme was launched in Coventry in late 2019 aiming to do a small collection of used Christmas trees in January 2020.

Collected trees were then used as mulch at Baginton-based Russell's Garden Centre.

In the first year the group collected 362 trees and raised over £4,000 for the two charities.

Last year some 106 volunteers and 14 vans helped collect 1,201 trees as the team expanded across the city and into Kenilworth, Balsall Common and Henley in Arden.

But the organisers want to go even bigger this year.

Team member Paul Flower said: "This year we aim to reach a little further afield into Warwick, more of Kenilworth, Meriden, Leamington and Rugby with the ambition of collecting 2,500 trees.

"Obviously we want to raise as much money as we can and reaching £30,000 would be amazing."

As well as The Myton Hospices the collections also raise money for Childhood cancer research charity Pass The Smile For Ben which was started by Scott and Sarah Crowther in memory of their son Ben who died in 2019.

As well as raising money for the charity, the event also aims to spread joy in Ben's memory.

Paul said: "Ben Crowther was a happy boy who always wanted to have fun, he loved a practical joke.

"We always seek to spread that joy in whatever we do and make the collection process as fun as possible - our collectors dress up and generally have a good time."

Donations can also be made directly.

Text 'TREE5' to donate £5 or 'TREE10' to donate £10 to 70300. 100 per cent of your donation will be received by The Myton Hospices who will then share this with Pass The Smile. (Texts cost the stated donation amount plus one standard network message charge.)

To register to have your tree collected, please follow this link.