A WATERFOOT pub is allowing its customers to relieve themselves in more ways than one.

For regulars at the Railway pub, Bacup Road, are being encouraged to give a penny when they spend a penny.

Gents can now get rid of their spare change whenever nature calls, simply by tossing coins into the urinal trough.

The donations are collected regularly by staff, who put the cash into bottles to be donated to Rossendale Hospice.

The coins are given a disinfectant scrub immediately after they are collected and then allowed to dry, to make sure no remnants of their unusual method of donation can be found.

More than £200 has been raised by the generosity of the pub's patrons and donated to the hospice, which provides services such as an acute day care for people in need of respite care, an acute child bereavement service for children who have lost loved ones, an adult bereavement service, a carers group, an out-patient clinic and other services such as complementary therapies. Stanley Hargreaves, whose son Michael Brittain manages the pub, said: "We had the idea when my son went in to clean the toilets one Saturday morning and noticed that there were several coins in the trough.

"The money was disinfected and put in the charity bottle and someone had the idea that we should put a sign up.

"Now people know that whatever money they want to leave in there will go to charity. It's been quite popular with all the regulars.

"All of the money people leave is carefully disinfected and allowed to dry then we put it into big whisky bottles which we give to the hospice when they get full.

"The amount we get can vary from 20 or 30 pence to pounds, but it all adds up and we've already had about £200 to give to charity, so we're quite pleased.

"It's a bit of a laugh, but it's going to a good cause."