A CYCLING enthusiast and former mayor is set to to ride more than 200 miles between the UK’s two Burnhams in a bid to raise money for a life-saving charity.

Andy Brewer, who used to be Mayor of Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, will ride coast-to-coast to his hometown of Burnham-on Crouch.

The keen cyclist is raising money for hovercraft rescue charity BARB Search and Rescue, which operates two life-saving vehicles along the coast.

Andy said: “Whilst I wouldn’t dare to compare myself with the likes of Captain Tom Moore, I want to give myself a challenge that can be used to raise much-needed funds for Burnham’s hovercraft rescue service, enabling them to maintain their training schedule and continue to provide their service.

In the past few months, Andy has completed a number of coast to coast cycles, but this will be his longest challenge to date.

He said: “BARB provides an essential service in keeping our coastline safe and the charity is wholly dependent on voluntary contributions, much of which is achieved via fundraising activities which have not been possible since restrictions were introduced to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

“Over the past few months I’ve been cycling to keep myself fit and active and I’ve been inspired by some of the high profile fundraising challenges for our key workers.”

Andy will kick off the 200 mile trip on September 4 and is being sponsored by Burnham-on-Sea’s Retreat Caravan Park.

Mark Newman, a spokesman for BARB, said: “We are hugely grateful to Andy for taking on this challenge and the Retreat Caravan Park for their continuing support of BARB.

“We are a small, independent charity that is fully dependent on donations to keep our life-saving service running and this year has been especially challenging, with fundraising halted for several months.

“We need to raise thousands of pounds every year to keep running, so fundraising events like this make a real difference. We wish Andy every success and we will have two of our team travelling along the cycling with him to provide support.”

Donate to Andy’s appeal at justgiving.com/barb-jg.