A lottery which has helped raise thousands of pounds for a hospice is celebrating its fifth anniversary.

Friday marks the fifth year of the first Martlets Hospice lottery draw which has gone from strength to strength.

The lottery was launched by comedian Mark Little in the summer of 2000 with the first draw held in the September.

The lottery has grown steadily and now has just under 6,000 members.

It makes about £150,000 a year for the hospice and is seen as a valuable source of regular income.

It is an important contribution to the more than £2.75 million that has to be raised every year towards the £3.5 million cost of running the Hove-based hospice.

As hospices are not part of the NHS, less than a quarter of the £3.5 million is met by the Government.

Fund-raising manager Robert Griffiths said work would continue in the next five years to make sure the lottery continued to grow.

He said:"We are always looking for ways to encourage people to join the lottery and to ask those who have already joined to keep on playing.

"We have some people who joined when it was launched.

"Since the lottery started we have had more than 10,000 people playing.

"We want to make sure we can maintain an average of 6,000 players but the more who can play the better.

"When we started the lottery there were a few people who were a little uncomfortable with the idea because of the nature of the work done by the Martlets.

"We could understand that but we also needed to ensure that we were able to raise the money needed to keep the hospice running so had to look at new ideas.

"We are very pleased with how things have turned out. The hospice has only been going since 1997 but has managed to get a lot of support in that time.

"We hope that will continue as the Martlets is part of the community in Brighton and Hove and will always need the community's help."

The money raised each year is vital cash needed to pay for medicines, equipment and specialist staff.

The hospice ended the last financial year with a surplus of more than £70,000 but the year before it went over budget by £43,000.

The lottery costs £1 a week per entry and is drawn every Friday. Prizes are £1,000, £150, £100, £50 and £5.

To join, call lottery manager Sheila Green on 01273 747455.