ANIMAL Friends in Amesbury has been spreading joy this Christmas after giving away £150,000 to support the work of animal charities.

To celebrate 20 years of providing pet insurance the business was joined by three animal charities for its Big Reveal on Monday to find out who would be the lucky recipient of a donation of £100,000.

StreetVet, a vet-led volunteer initiative providing free and accessible vet care to those experiencing homelessness and their pets, were chosen as the winning charity - taking away the main donation of £100,000.

But as an added surprise, Animal Friends gave £25,000 each to the Celia Hammond Animal Trust and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

StreetVet co-founder Jade Statt said: “This, for us, is without a doubt game changing. We only started up officially in April 2017 and we’ve been surviving on the public and also the good will of the profession and all the practices and the industry that have supported us.”

She said the donation would give the charity a “foundation” and “platform to work from” to ensure it is “sustainable”. The money will be used to help with the start-up costs of rolling the service out to a new city. It hopes to start StreetVet in Scotland in February.

In the future, Jade hopes the charity will launch into “more and more locations”. It currently operates in nine locations, including Southampton.

Andy Hutchins and his dog Bailey have been supported by StreetVet . He said: “They care about the animal and their welfare but also take an interest in helping the person as well.

“They are amazing, brilliant people.”

“I’m housed now and everything is good, all thanks to Bailey and StreetVet. I’m very passionate about them and their work,” added Andy.

Gill Perkins, of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, said she was “excited and delighted” by the £25,000 donation to the charity, adding: “We are hoping this money will go towards helping one of our rarest bumblebees, the great yellow bumblebee, which is found in the north of Scotland. It is right on the edge of extinction so it is going to be really helpful in making sure that we get good habitats for that bee.”

Ceren Sonmez, of the Celia Hammond Animal Trust, said the charity was “over the moon” with the donation, which she said would “continue to help us when it comes to helping strays all the time, everyday 24/7, 365 days”.

Animal Friends, which is based at Solstice Park, has nearly hit the £4million mark for money donated to charities.

The company’s managing director, Wesley Pearson, said: “It’s a good feeling to give money away to these well-deserving charities.”

He added: “It is always good to meet charities involved and see what it means to them face-to-face.”