A WINCHESTER hotel has been working with a charity aimed at improving the lives of disabled or injured servicemen and women.

The Holiday Inn on Morn Hill recently opened its doors to former members of the armed forces who were en route to take part in a training exercise with Hounds for Heroes – a charity that helps them to rehabilitate with the support of specially trained dogs.

Allen Parton, vice-chairman and founder of Hounds for Heroes, said: “There are 900,000 injured service personnel in this country and it is heartening to know that the team at the Holiday Inn care enough to want to make a difference, by helping some of our Hounds for Heroes clients with such perfect accessible accommodation for free and their generous offer of complimentary room hire for fund raising events and meetings as well.”

Sarah Waddington, the hotel sales manager, said: “Our team is looking forward to seeing them undergo some of their training around the hotel and to working with the charity to raise such important funds.”

Siobhan Thomasson, general manager at the hotel, said: “We are all thrilled with this connection to Hounds for Heroes and to be able to do something really positive and practical to help the injured and disabled service people who are in training with their dogs. “The charity is such a perfect fit for us as we are located in a significant military town and the hotel’s location here at Morn Hill was an important historic World War One site, which we believe is when service dogs were created to help those injured in the Great War.”