A WITNEY man is nearing his target of raising £5,000 for charity in memory of his late father.

Richard Brailsford is fundraising for the UK Motor Neurone Disease Association following the death of his dad, Chris, in 2013.

Mr Brailsford, a management consultant, has taken on a number of challenges in recent years and is now training to take on the 44-mile Wild Boar Chase mountain bike event in the Forest of Dean on May20.

He is also planning to ride the full length of the Ridgeway – all 87 miles of it.

Mr Brailsford's father suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the same form of the condition as scientist Stephen Hawking, who died earlier this year.

He said: "Stephen Hawking obviously lived for decades after being diagnosed, but it took my dad just nine months after he found out he had it. It was incredibly painful to watch.

“Five years later and there is still no effective treatment and motor neurone disease is still always terminal.

"We are raising money for research because we want to remove just one word from the sentence ‘there is not a cure for motor neurone disease’."

To sponsor Mr Brailsford go to justgiving.com/fundraising/richard-brailsford7