A CHARITY is urging people not to leave donations outside its Burnham-on-Sea shop.

Weston Hospicecare, which owns a shop in High Street, said scores of items left outside its shop have been searched through, stolen or ruined by the weather.

The charity is urging people to drop off their donations at one of their donation stations rather than leave it outside the shop.

Cindy Tee, area manager of Weston Hospicecare, said: "We are grateful that so many people want to support the hospice with donations but at this time we ask that they only leave them at specified donation stations and never at shops that are closed.

"We find that when donations are left outside of our shops they are either searched through by others, stolen or completely ruined by the weather.

"In most cases we often have to send one of our vans out to deal with them which costs us time and money.

"Unfortunately we have recently noticed an increase in people leaving rubble and garden waste amongst the donations and also broken or damaged goods.

"We have operated donation stations regularly through the last few months and we plan to continue this, we would ask that any donations are properly delivered to one of these stations and never just left outside any of our shops."