MOBILITY equipment worth hundreds of thousands of pounds has been sent to a children's cancer hospital in Egypt in a charity project's largest shipment yet.

Set up early last year, Warrington Disability Partnership's Phoenix Project has seen second-hand equipment including wheelchairs and walkers dispatched to countries including Syria and Thailand from a unit on Gatewarth Industrial Estate.

And the project's 10th shipment - sent on Monday, May 21 - was the largest yet, valued at around £350,000 if the equipment was bought new.

These donations will benefit the 57357 Hospital, a specialist children's cancer facility in Cairo.

Dave Thompson, co-founder and chief executive of Warrington Disability Partnership, said "This is going to make a huge difference.

"In the UK, we take it for granted that everybody who needs a wheelchair gets a wheelchair.

"When you go across to countries like Egypt they are using wheelchairs that we would throw in a skip.

"The amount of donations we've had from NHS organisations, specialist businesses, wheelchair services, home loan stores, other charities and members the public has been amazing.

"This is recycling in its greatest sense."

Volunteers from the Warrington and Birchwood Lions groups as well as the Warrington Rotary Club helped to load the lorry with equipment.

Mehdat Boutros, from project partners St Mark's Universal Copts Care, added: "The hospital is very popular, not just in Egypt but across the Arabic world.

"It was formed and is still being run based on donations.

"This equipment will give these children dignity instead of having to be carried by their relatives.

"It will give them something to help them feel independent.

"Otherwise, if they do not come from a family that can afford it, they will just have to go without.

"The environmental impact that this has in the UK is also fantastic, because otherwise all of this equipment would have ended up in a skip."