A Whitehaven pub hopes to save people’s lives by fundraising for a new town centre defibrillator.

Amber Sullivan, landlady of The Whittington Cat in Lowther Street, has challenged her staff to raise £2,000 to cover the costs of installing one of the vital machines outside the pub.

The 27-year-old was inspired to start the campaign following a number of incidents in the town centre over recent months and after speaking to her boyfriend, Nathan Quinn, who is a community first responder so knows how important quick access to a defibrillator can be.

“Particularly on nights when it’s busy they get an enormous amount of callouts, and he was saying how badly they need these defibrillators,” she said.

“We are central for both the top and bottom ends of town and we’ve got the Pubwatch radio which is linked to pubs around the town centre so we can get it around the area.

“The emergency services are so stretched at the moment and the wait times have gone up, so anything we can do to help is good.”

If the campaign is successful, Amber – who also wanted to thank the people who recently voted the pub the best in the county – plans to hold a course to train her staff and invite someone from every pub in the town to also learn how to use the machine.

She hopes that the defibrillator would allow quicker treatment for someone in the event of an emergency.