FATHER Christmas helped to raise thousands of pounds when he visited children in Northwich in the run-up to Christmas.

Ably assisted by his friends from the Rotary Club of Northwich Vale Royal, Santa collected £6,600 touring Northwich's streets and meeting children in the town centre grotto.

This is an increase on previous years, which have raised about £5,000.

Steve Wheat, from the Rotary Club of Northwich Vale Royal, said: "The elves of the Rotary Club of Northwich Vale Royal would like to say a big thank you to our wonderful community for their generosity and kindness during our tour of Northwich streets and town centre collections supporting Santa.

"In total we have collected £6,600 that will be distributed to local children’s charities.

"We also brought a lot of joy to both young and old as they came to see us during our 12 nights out and four Saturday sessions."

The club thoroughly enjoy collecting with Santa.

"It's a wonderful opportunity for the club to be really engaged with the communities within which we work," Steve said.

"Club members enjoy being out in the streets meeting children and adults alike.

"The atmosphere and goodwill is tangible.

"Our efforts are appreciated as much by the old as new – one grandmother opened the door to me in Hartford this year with the words 'I know Christmas is coming when Santa's sleigh comes here!'.

"The only other memorable welcome I have had on the doorstep was 'Oh! I thought you were my Chinese arriving' and promptly put part of her payment for her takeaway in my bucket."

Father Christmas and the Rotary club have embraced modern technology, installing a GPS tracker on the sleigh so that residents could follow his progress and started promoting the routes on social media.

Unfortunately they were not able to visit everyone and have apologised to those who missed out.

Steve said: "Unfortunately there were some negative comments on our Facebook and Twitter pages about streets that were missed.

"We are very sorry but sadly due to parked cars that restricted manoeuvrability of the sleigh and time constraints we weren't able to visit some areas of our advertised routes."