KIND-HEARTED townspeople are being urged to use their unused holiday money to help spread some warmth this winter for elderly residents in the area.

The national campaign, Fight the Freeze Foreign Currency Appeal, has been launched by Age Concern to try and raise more money to fund winter projects such as free electric blanket testing.

By taking the coins into the Bromsgrove branch, townspeople will benefit directly from 50 per cent of the profit and the other half will go into a national pool where individual groups across England can apply for the money in a grant form.

The call for the coins comes as twelve European currencies are set to go out of circulation as they join the Euro next year.

Sheelagh Keen, Chief officer of the Bromsgrove group in Windsor Street, urged people to take the money directly to Bromsgrove.

"There are other collecting points in the area but if people bring the coins directly to the Bromsgrove branch we get 50 per cent of the money raised.

"The fund will enable us to provide vital things in our contingency plan if there is bad whether such as small cookers and heaters for the elderly.

"The money, which people won't be able to use again, could really make a difference to the elderly people in the town," she said.