TWO York professionals are planning to use leg power to make up for some of the withdrawn Government funding for the York and district Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB).

Nicki Mitchell, a solicitor with York solicitors Denison Till, and Adrian Widdowson, a tax adviser with chartered accountants Garbutt & Elliott, are both trustees of the CAB in York. They hope to raise cash to pay for training for volunteer advisers for the city’s CAB by running in the Jane Tomlinson Run For All 10K mini-marathon in York on July 31.

At the same time demand for the CAB’s services is increasing, the money available from public funds is being reduced. While the bureau still gets core funding support from City of York Council, funding from central government is being cut. Adrian, who is also the York CAB treasurer, hopes the run will raise the profile of the CAB as a charity and generate money too. Last year, nearly 5,000 York residents received help from the CAB, a 30 per cent increase on the year before, as more and more people were faced with the threat of losing their jobs or suffering a drastic cut in their income, meaning debts previously manageable have become overwhelming.

With the recession and public spending cuts, more people are coming to the CAB’s door than it can help. Now the CAB wants to recruit more volunteers, but each of them costs about £1,000 to train.

Adrian said: “Since becoming treasurer of the CAB in 2009, I have seen funding even more difficult to get while more and more people come through our doors needing help.”

Nicki said: “I grew up in York and I have worked here as a solicitor since 1994.

“I became a CAB trustee because I could see that lots of people needed the free help and advice York CAB provides and which they couldn’t get elsewhere.”

The Run For All 10K is organised by the Jane Tomlinson Events Team through Run For All Limited.

It starts from York Racecourse, at 9am on Sunday July 31 and goes around the city’s streets for ten kilometres. More than 4,000 people are expected to take part.

For details on how to enter, visit http://runforall.com/events/ or email info@runforall.com