A WIRRAL charity shop is driving ahead with a novel way of boosting its revenue by encouraging motorists to donate their old cars or vans.

Faced with competition from commercial organisations for donated goods such as clothing and bric-a-brac, the ExtraCare Charitable Trust shop in Pyramids Shopping Centre, Birkenhead has been looking at new ways of bringing in cash.

One of the schemes to accelerate its fundraising work is a drive to have motorists agree to hand over the proceeds from either auctioning off or scrapping their old unwanted cars and vans.

The charity has teamed up with Giveacar, a non-profit social enterprise which collects banger-class vehicles for charity.

Regardless of their condition, cars or vans are taken in free of charge by Giveacar before being sold through an online auction or disposed of at an authorised scrapage facility.

Proceeds from the sale are then donated to charities such as ExtraCare.

Even if the donated vehicle ends up being scrapped, it could still net the charity between £40 and £250.

Dawn Breen, who has been manager of ExtraCare at Pyramids since it opened just over four years ago, said: "We never really had a problem with getting people to donate items for us to sell in the shop.

"However, we've recently been getting quite a bit of competition from commercial organisations which offer cash for clothing and other items.

"We recently decided to explore other avenues of attracting revenue and came across this very interesting idea of working with Giveacar to encourage people to donate their unwanted vehicles.

"It all works very simply and we will help anyone who is interested in taking advantage of the scheme with the details.

"They basically just come into the shop and we put them in touch with Giveacar which makes all the arrangements, either online or over the phone, for the car or van to be taken to auction or for scrapping.

“Getting rid of an unused or unwanted vehicle can often be quite a problem but this scheme takes all the pain and inconvenience out of it for you. Giveacar also arranges everything in a legal and environmentally friendly way.

"We have 27 volunteer assistants at the shop. They have been fully trained on the scheme and are all very excited about it.

"In the past we've had a couple of calls from people wanting to donate cars or vans to us but, up to now, we’ve had no way of arranging this.

"That's why I believe the new scheme should do really well for us.”

To enquire about donating you unwanted vehicle, call into the ExtraCare charity shop in the Pyramids, visit www.giveacar.co.uk, or call 020 7736 4242, quoting The ExtraCare Charitable Trust as your chosen chariy.