A regional publisher has revealed a six-figure charity boost for more than 50 good causes across the country.

Newsquest has announced it has made donations totalling £145,000 to different community organisations around the UK as part of the group’s ‘Cash for Charities’ initiative.

In a first this year, Newsquest invited readers to nominate which local good cause they believed should benefit from the annual scheme.

More than 8,000 applications were received as a result and an editorial panel considered all the nominations received.

Readers were invited to collect voting tokens published in the newspapers last November to back their choice, with 17,000 votes being cast in total as a result.

The trustees of the Gannett Foundation, the charitable arm of Newsquest’s owner, also gave £10,000 to the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ Journalism Diversity Fund as part of the scheme.

Newsquest brands and marketing manager Debbie Hellaby, pictured, said: “We felt that our readers were best placed to identify those charities who were most in need of our support.

“This meant that bigger charities with the resource to write the most comprehensive grant application did not have an unfair advantage over the smaller and sometimes overlooked community initiatives.

“It has been a privilege to be involved in this project that over the years has done so much to support positive impacts in our local communities.”