THE?chairman of East Hampshire District Council will take the plunge in aid of charity in April – literally!

David Ashcroft will join “the magnificent seven” – a group of seven mayors and council chairmen from across the region – in a charity abseil down the Emirates Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.

They team will be led by the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth and will include representatives from Gosport, Winchester, Havant, Eastleigh, Southampton, and East Hampshire.

Money raised will go to each councillor’s respective charity appeal. Mr Ashcroft’s chosen charities are Southern Domestic Abuse Services and Medical Detection Dogs.

For the district council chairman, this will be “a first”. Not only has he never done anything like it before, but he doesn’t yet know if he has a head for heights.

With thoughts of perhaps seeking advice and a bit of training at Alton Sports Centre he is, nonetheless, determined to go ahead with the challenge. His mayoral charities, he says, “need the money” and he doesn’t want to let them down.

According to Mr Ashcroft, he adopted Southern Domestic Abuse Services for the children. He said: “In this current climate families are under a lot of pressure and things can start to get out of hand. I feel particularly sorry for the kids.”

Mr Ashcroft is raising money to support Southern Domestic Abuse Services in the work it does with these children in a bid to try to break the cycle of abuse.

Of Medical Detection Dogs, Mr Ashcroft said they have “good noses” and are being used to detect illness in human beings. While some might not like the idea of medical detection dogs, Mr Ashcroft said: “Surely it is better to know that you have a problem and get it treated than to find out too late?”

Over the course of his chairmanship, Mr Ashcroft is hoping to match, if not better, some of his predecessors by raising more than £8,000 and, if possible, as much as the record £20,000 raised by Chris Butler for the Treloar Trust.

He is urging businesses and the public to sponsor his April abseil by e-mailing [email protected].