HOLIDAY cottage specialist Helpful Holidays is to donate more than £60,000 to a range of charities operating in and around the Westcountry.

The first four charities to benefit are the Devon Air Ambulance Trust, the Marine Conservation Society, Farms for City Children and the RNLI.

More regional and national charities will also receive donations throughout the year.

ShelterBox, the Cornwall-based charity famous for its delivery of aid boxes, has already received a donation of £1,000 for its Haiti appeal and Devon Wildlife Trust has recently received £500.

Helpful Holidays generated its charitable fund from the VAT saved during the recent reduction.

Rather than taking extra profit or discounting its already published prices, Helpful Holidays donated the 2.5 per cent VAT cut to the charitable fund. General manager Moray Bowater said: "We decided to hold our prices at the same level and not introduce a price reduction. The VAT change made such a small difference to the cost of an individual holiday, we knew it would make no difference to our sales.

"But we book over 17,000 holidays annually and we knew those small amounts would add up to quite a bit over the year. It seemed a golden opportunity to raise some cash for the charities being hit hard by the recession. We've collected it all over the past year and now have a pot of money, which we can pass on to the charities we support."

The firm's adopted charity for this year is the Devon Air Ambulance Trust. At the end of the year, Helpful Holidays will match the sum donated by customers, who are invited to support the charity when booking.