A CREWE charity that helps children with metabolic diseases has been awarded a lottery grant of more than a quarter of a million pounds.

Children Living with Inherited Metabolic Diseases (Climb), whose headquarters are in Nantwich Road, successfully gained a Community Grant of £268,000 as part of a three-year project that will also be funded by the Department of Health and Climb.

The project, which aims to set up a national information and advice centre for metabolic disease sufferers, will be based in Crewe with the total cost reaching £538,000 over the three-years.

To mark the start on April 1, the charity will spearhead the scheme with the launch of a national freephone 0800 number for families, much to the delight of executive director Steve Hannigan.

"This grant is fantastic," he said, "it means that we can now achieve National Centre status and gives us formal recognition to Climb as the national leader in this specialist field.

"The project will provide additional support and services to families and professionals affected by metabolic diseases and over the coming months there will be an increase in staff and services too."

It is great news for the charity, which has been supporting families affected by the disease for 22 years and currently supports 3,500 families covering 570 different metabolic diseases, some of which are very rare and may only affect two or three families nationwide.

In total, there are 16,000 families affected by the various diseases in the UK.