The owner of a Portishead barber shop is raffling off a signed Bristol City shirt to help raise funds to save the town's open air pool.

Joe Bennett, of Bennett's Barbers, was given the shirt by a friend at the football club and decided to raffle it off for the Pound for the Pool campaign.

Customers of the shop can put £1 in the collection tin in return for a raffle ticket.

The fundraising Pound For the Pool campaign was launched earlier this year by members of the Save the Open Air Pool (STOP) campaign to raise £20,000 to help make sure the lido can open this summer.

So far people in the town have raised £7,000, nearly a third of the total.

The STOP campaign, backed by the Bristol Post, has set up a community trust to take over the running of the pool from North Somerset Council.

The trust has submitted a business plan for the pool to the council and negotiations on a possible takeover of the seafront attraction are continuing. A decision expected on the future of the pool next month.

Joe, 20, grew up in the town and is a former Gordano School pupil. He started his barber business up a year ago.

"My friends and I used the pool a lot in the school summer holidays and I do not want to see it close," he said.

"It's important that we preserve and protect Portishead's heritage for our future generations.

"When I was offered the shirt I thought that raffling it off would be a great way to raise funds for the pool.

"We get around 30 customers a day through the shop and if we can encourage even half of them to put a £1 in the tin, then that will help the cause."

Campaigners have given collection tins to shops across the town for people to donate, and cheques and money have been flooding into campaign headquarters.

STOP campaign leader, Roger Whitfield, is delighted with the support so far, but said fundraising needed to continue to secure the pool's future.

"The support we have had for the campaign so far has been amazing, but we still need people to dig deep if we are to hit our target," he said.

Collection boxes bearing the STOP campaign logo are in Nortech Computers, Larsen's Cafe, Portishead Business Centre, Morgan Westley, Bella Natura, Bennett's Barber Shop, Juicy Jones, Mother Nature, Hayley's Hair Studio, Portishead Pet and Garden Centre, The Outlet, McCormicks Cafe and Restaurant, Super Savers, Zebra and Carey's DIY, all of which are in the High Street.

Collection tins are also in Robert John Hairdressers in Cabstand and Mark's Barbers in West Hill.

Anyone wanting to make a donation can also send a cheque or postal order made payable to Portishead Pool Community Trust, to Nortech Computers, 10 High Street, Portishead, BS20 6EW.

If North Somerset Council rejects the option of placing the pool in the hands of a trust and decides to close the pool, all money collected from the campaign will be donated to community projects in Portishead.