A HAWES-based business has stepped in to ensure a project aimed at helping farmers through the foot-and-mouth crisis will continue.

Hilco Europe, an international optical company, has provided funding to enable the upper Wensleydale community partnership's foot-and-mouth regeneration project to operate through the critical months of October and November.

Hilco farmers' aid was set up in response to outbreaks of the virus in the dale in the spring, as Mr Paul Wignall, then managing director, who has since retired, was keen to help the local farming community.

He said the company operated in an industry relatively unaffected by the crisis and wanted to assist those who were in a less fortunate position.

Hilco farmers' aid has been looking for ways to use funds accumulated from the company's own donation and others, including Yore Church, so they would directly benefit people in Wensleydale. The firm agreed the project was ideally suited to the aims of its fund.