A SPONSOR has pulled out of a town's annual charity bike ride.

Springs health and leisure club, whose Hartlepool marina complex has been the start-and-finish point and registration station for the Cycle4Life event during the past four years, is stepping down.

The bike ride raised more than £10,000 this year and will be staged again next summer.

A spokesman for Springs, whose club will continue to be used as the central point for Cycle4Life on the day, said: "We are happy to have played a key role as one of the three working partners in one of the town's most popular and successful charity events. We do, however, have clubs in other North-East towns and cities and they too want to be involved, in a major way, raising money for their local charities.

"Needless to say, we are very reluctant to step down from the Cycle4Life organising committee, on which we have so many friends, but it is a case of needs must if we are to enable our other clubs to play similar roles for charity in their local areas.''

Three-quarters of the money raised each year by the sponsored cyclists completing one of the three alternative routes of ten miles, 25 miles, and 50 miles, goes to Hartlepool and District Hospice, the remainder to other local charities.

Keith Thomas, chairman of the organising committee said: "Special thanks are due to Stan Henry, the owner of Springs, who has been very generous in his support, and to his public relations team, who served on the organising committee and did much to publicise Cycle4Life."