ONE of the North-East’s best-known charities is deadly serious about an appeal for fund-raisers brave enough to be chased by a pack of zombies.

The Butterwick Hospice is staging its annual Zombie Run at Witton Castle, in County Durham, between 1pm and 6pm on Sunday, October 29.

And, as well as appealing for “runners” to raise funds for the hospice, the Butterwick has launched a “head-haunting” mission to recruit enough zombies into dead-end jobs as the official “chasers”.

Previous zombie runs for the hospice have taken place in Hamsterley Forest but this year’s event has been switched to Witton Castle, near Bishop Auckland, to add more movie-style atmosphere.

The castle’s general manager Ronnie Gibson has already signed up to be one of the runners fleeing from the flesh-eating ghouls.

“As well as providing the grounds for the event, I wanted to show as much support as possible to a fantastic cause by agreeing to get stuck in and take part,” said Mr Gibson.

The run will take place over a 5k obstacle course leading to a “decontamination chamber” and each runner will be fitted with a utility belt containing three tags. The zombies’ job is to grab the lives, one at a time.

To register for a place as a runner, participants will be expected to be 'coffin up' £35 for an adult ticket and £20 for children. A family ticket, for two adults and two children is £90 and there is a ten per cent discount for groups of ten or more.

A welcome pack will be sent following registration and Zombie Run UK t-shirts can be bought for £7.

Children between eight and 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Children from 12-16 may run alone as long as they’ve been registered by an adult. No under-eights are allowed.

Butterwick fundraiser Helen Kirby said: “We need runners to raise funds and volunteers to be zombies. It’s going to be a lot of fun so it would be a grave error to miss out.”

The goal – or ghoul – is to raise £5,000 for the hospice.

To find out more go to www.butterwick.org.uk/events/zombierunuk/ or www.zombierunuk.com.