AN adopt-a-gran scheme is being launched by a town's churches to keep an eye on elderly residents.

The Helping Hands project, in Redcar, similar to a scheme in neighbouring Middlesbrough, supports elderly people living on their own and has won a grant for £71,329 from The Big Lottery, to run over the next three years.

This has been put together with £30,428 from the West Redcar Single Regeneration Budget and with smaller grants from local churches that total £137,395. The scheme has been devised by Redcar's Methodist, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.

But its success will depend on recruiting volunteer visitors who will receive training and expenses and will be asked to visit a lonely elderly person for a couple of hours, at least once a fortnight.

"We have worked for three years towards this goal,which will be of great benefit to the wards that suffer from severe deprivation,'' said Mike Clark, spokesman for Helping Hands. "It will address the fact that because of the jobs situation, many families now live away from elderly parents and grandparents, and cannot give the help.''

The Helping Hands steering groups includes representatives from Age Concern, Redcar and Cleveland Council Social Services, Stead Hospital Occupational Therapy Unit and Carers Together.