TATTON MP Esther McVey has been branching out in to help recycle Christmas trees for charity.

Ms McVey joined the huge team of volunteers who collected thousands of trees at the weekend to raise £90,000 for East Cheshire Hospice.

She was very impressed by the number of volunteers who had given up their time and the level of organisation which went into the collection.

“I was delighted to join the hospice volunteers on Saturday to see the work that goes into making the tree collection such a great success,” she said.

A hospice spokesman said: “This year the collection has raised more than £90,000 and collected almost seven thousand trees - an absolutely incredible effort from the huge team of volunteers over the weekend.

“Thank you so much to everybody who had their tree collected for your incredible generosity, and thank you to all the volunteers who gave up their weekend in aid of the hospice.”

Ms McVey added: “The volunteers have done a brilliant job of getting support from local companies – whether to provide mulching machines, route optimisation software for the vans or the catering for all the volunteers and in assembling a fantastic band of volunteers, some of who I joined for part of their collection round.

“The level of organisation was incredible, but everyone was also clearly having fun while they worked.

“It’s the perfect sort of fundraising - providing a service people need, with an environmentally-friendly outcome and raising money for a vital local charity at the same time.

“As it is the hospice’s biggest fundraiser of the year, I was also really interested to hear about the work going on to enable other hospices around the country to replicate the event.

“There are 42 other hospices using their model, which is a huge credit to East Cheshire Hospice.”