Slimming success for members of Saffron Walden’s Slimming World has helped raise £500 for Cancer Research.

The group donated 21 bin bags full of old ‘too big’ clothes in a collection on Friday, May 22, with each one raising £25-30.

Fay Griffiths, consultant for Saffron Walden Slimming World, said: “A lot of our members have been touched by the cause.

“We have a lot of people in the group who joined because of cancer and it’s great to be able to support members as well as a charity.

Members donated clothes to the Cancer Research shop in town and, with Gift Aid, hope to raise an extra 25%.

Ms Griffiths added: “We have 4,000 groups in England all doing their bit. We launched in January so the response was great for such a little group.

“The £500 is just from the bags brought in that week but lots of our members took their bags straight to the shop.”

Nationally Slimming World raised over a million pounds for the charity last year, a target it expects to exceed this year.

Karen Denmark, a member of Saffron Walden Slimming World, joined the group after undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

“I joined Slimming World after putting on so much weight during my cancer journey,” she said, “I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to lose weight, despite desperately wanting to do so as I wanted to do a tandem parachute jump to raise money for Breast Cancer Care.

“To date I have lost 2 stone and I feel so much healthier and happier.

“The support from the group and Fay is fantastic. The fact that they have chosen to support a worthy charity for all those who need the on-going medical research into all the different forms of cancer is another reason that makes me proud to be part of the group.”

A second Slimming World group will be opening in Saffron Walden at the end of June which Ms Griffiths hopes will help raise even more money in 2016.