A university lecturer and former regional press journalist is putting his best foot forward to raise £10,000 for an autism project.

Dave Welford, who teaches newspaper journalism at Nottingham Trent University, is donning his walking boots with his 17-year-old autistic son for a local charity wanting to build a garden centre and café run by autistic school-leavers.

The intrepid duo will walk 33.3-miles from Bamford, in North Derbyshire, along the Derwent Valley to the mid-Derbyshire town of Belper.

The garden centre and café project is the brainchild of a local autism centre for children based in Holbrook, near Belper, with an initial fundraising target of £100,000.

Dave, a former Derby Evening Telegraph district editor, has already called on local authorities to pay for a specialist centre for autistic adults because there are no publicly-funded centres in Derbyshire.

Autistic adults in Derbyshire have to face long waiting lists and care fees of more than £200,000 at privately-funded centres.

Dave, 46, said: “Ultimately, what I’m hoping is that Derbyshire and Derby City councils are going to fund post-19 provision.

“In advance of them doing that, staff at the Holbrook school and people like myself are trying to kick-start things with this centre.

“Lenny and I go out walking every weekend but the furthest he has walked is about 13 miles.

“We’ll do 20 miles before we go so I’m confident he can do it but I’m sure he’ll be the one that will be ok at the end and I’ll be the one flagging.”