A WIRRAL Golden Globe award-winner has picked up a major national honour for his charity which helps young people.

The Open Door Centre in Liscard helps young people with anxiety or depression, has won the 'Best New Start-Up' Award at the Third Sector Excellence Awards in London.

Regarded as "the Awards to win", the accolade is for registered charities, not-for-profits organisations, social enterprises and campaigning groups.

Winners are chosen as they represent the best examples in the country of outstanding campaigns, strategies, projects and performance, backed up by hard evidence of success.

The Open Door centre earned its director Lee Pennington the award for Contribution to the Community in last year’s first Wirral Golden Globe awards.

On his latest award, Lee said: "Since opening less than two years ago the response to centre has been amazing.

"We would never have believed that we would have been so successful in such a short space of time and that the community would embrace the work which we do to such a large degree.

"To win this award really does represent the pinnacle of what we have achieved so far, building on the number of local and national awards we already have under our belt including winning Outstanding Contribution to the Community at last year’s Wirral Globe Golden Globes.

"We have supported hundreds of young people since opening with our unique approach to therapy, Astral Coast has been a runaway success as has The Wonderful Sounds of the Melody Ranch Podcast and Opening Doors Volunteering Project.

"To win awards on a national level is fantastic in terms of us moving the service forward."

Ben Kernighan, chief executive of the National Union of Students and an Awards judge, said: "The Open Door Centre has quickly established itself as a trusted organisation providing a wide variety of services to a complex client group."