A SPONSORED walking campaign has doubled its month-long fundraising target.

Welcome to Yorkshire and Yorkshire Cancer Research launched the Tour de Walkshire on May1 with a month-long £50,000 fundraising target.

Thanks to the popularity of the campaign, which encourages people to get out and about and share their walks on social media, more than £100,000 was raised in May.

The Tour de Walkshire is part of Welcome to Yorkshire’s year-long #Walkshire initiative.

With many people participating across the county and further afield, organisers say the Tour de Walkshire has been an immense success, with fundraisers signed up from across the world, including California and Iowa in the US, as well as the UK and Europe.

Yorkshire Cancer Research chief executive Dr Kathryn Scott said: "As a result of the pandemic, there’s a massive need to innovate and we’ve got a huge amount of new research ready to be funded with the money raised through the Tour de Walkshire.

"This has been a fantastic boost to our fundraising given the drop in income we’ve experienced during the past 12-months.

“We’d just like to say a huge thank you to everybody who has taken part.

"We’ve seen such a variety of challenges from hundreds of people across the region, from walking every day to cycling the perimeter of our beautiful county – and even canoeing a half marathon."