A boy with dreams of becoming the youngest person to climb Mount Everest has smashed his fundraising target to help support families at a children’s hospice.

Six-year-old Oscar Burrow, from Lancaster, was inspired to become the youngest person to climb the world’s tallest mountain after learning about Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first people to have reached the summit.

Oscar’s father, Matt, felt that he needed some practice first, so they set about the challenge of climbing the 12 tallest mountains in the UK to the height of Everest (8,849 metres) instead, while raising money for Chorley-based children’s hospice Derian House.

Oscar is seven mountains into the climb and has already smashed his original target of £8,849 (one pound for every metre) and has almost reached £12,000.

He has now changed the target to £29,000 (one pound for every foot).

The youngster wants to use the money “to send poorly children on holiday” and, with the money raised so far, can already send 12 Derian families on what could be their last holiday to one of the charity’s four lodges.

Due to his magnificent fundraising, Oscar has now been invited to cut the ribbon to officially open the charity’s newly refurbished holiday lodges at Ribby Hall Holiday Village in Kirkham.

The ceremony will take place next Monday (March 6).

Oscar has already summitted the second tallest mountain in the UK, and one of the national three peaks, Snowdon, in North Wales, completing this in February.

Two of the remaining five peaks he has to climb are the others in the national three peaks, England’s Scarfell Pike planned for April, and Scotland’s Ben Nevis, planned for May.

To donate to Oscar’s JustGiving page, click here.