KEIGHLEY Lions have launched their annual festive partnership with a garden centre.

The club has received a £2,050 cheque from Stephen Smith’s at Harden, raised through last year’s grotto.

Since the initiative was launched a quarter of a century ago, over £80,000 has been coined-in for local and international causes.

The grotto – which this year also features a train – will open on Saturday, December 1.

Santa will arrive at the garden centre by sleigh at about 10am.

Then, together with Keighley town mayor Councillor Fulzar Ahmed and the winner of a name-the-train competition, he will formally open the grotto.

Santa will then be present every weekend up to Christmas, and on December 20 and 21, handing out gifts between 10.30am and 4pm.

The Lions will also be staging their hugely-popular Santa’s sleigh, which tours neighbourhoods on evenings throughout December and finishes by greeting shoppers in the town centre on Christmas Eve.

That venture has been running more for more than 50 years, during which it has raised over £200,000 for charitable causes.