Staff at cash-strapped Bingley Voluntary Action (BVA) were celebrating today after a bank stepped in with a massive donation after reading of its financial plight in the Telegraph & Argus.

And the £25,000 grant from the Bradford & Bingley - thought to be one of the largest local donations it has ever made to a charity - is set to keep the group financially secure for the immediate future.

Last month BVA chairman Prue Bray said the organisation, which caters for hundreds of elderly people by providing hot meals, transport, day care and counselling and also helps other projects by acting as an umbrella group, was in the grip of its worst financial crisis since it was founded in the 1980s.

Last year the group, which is based at Cardigan House in Ferncliffe Road and has ten mainly part-time staff, had to use £10,000 from reserves to meet its payroll and apply for a £10,000 emergency grant to keep going.

But following news of the windfall from the Bradford & Bingley, Mrs Bray said: "It's a tremendous boost and an amazing amount of money. It will enable more development work to be done in the community."

Bradford & Bingley's group corporate affairs manager Chris Holland said: "We were delighted to be able to help a local organisation that does so much good work.

"We saw the story in the T&A and it struck us we might be able to help."