A DENTAL clinic has ensured that a Great North runner has no holes to fill in his sponsorship target.

Mark Pinsent, an advertising executive with The Northern Echo, is running the Great North Run in September to raise money for the Clarke Lister Brain Haemorrhage Foundation.

The charity was set up by Mr Pinsent’s former colleague Carole Lister whose son Clarke tragically died of a tumour aged just ten-years-old in 1996.

When the Darlington Dental Clinic heard that Mr Pinsent had set a sponsorship target of £1,000, they generously stepped in to donate half that amount.

Mr Pinsent, 47, of Hartlepool, has run for the charity twice before and said: “I set out to raise £1,000 but I have exceeded that already.

“I want to raise as much as I possibly can and the contribution from them has really helped; the support from everybody has been great.”

The Clarke Lister Foundation supports people affected by brain haemorrhages, and their families, and provides a weekly social club at Oakerside Community Centre in Peterlee every Thursday.

It lists former Middlesbrough and Newcastle football heroes Bryan Robson, Paul Gascoigne and Steve Harper among its trustees.