THIS year’s New Swindon Half raised a whopping £118k for charity.

The record-high total is almost £50,000 more than the amount achieved by last year’s event.

There are doubts over whether the half-marathon will return, but this swell of support could bode well for its future.

Organiser Graeme Hardie was thrilled.

He said: “It’s unbelievable, what a great achievement for everyone who took part.

“We hoped that we would beat last year’s total and we did a huge push for runners to take part, but we never thought we would exceed it by this much.

“It seems like the response to the event has been more positive this year.

“Last year, we met a very resistant residential population who weren’t keen on the new route and there were issues with traffic.

“This year, the support on the course was huge and we’ve had no complaints, which is brilliant.

“Hopefully that goodwill will continue to grow over future events, though we haven’t yet decided if it will go ahead next year.

“It’s a long process so we will get together and decide at the end of October.”

Organisers sent a survey to every participant asking if they were supporting a charity and, if so, how much they raised, to calculate a fundraising total for this year’s half-marathon.

Graeme added: “The total we’ve got at the moment is just from the 1,100 survey responses.

“There may be even more money raised that we don’t know about yet, which is superb.

Prospect Hospice, Brighter Futures, and the Wiltshire Air Ambulance were the biggest benefactors.

“We’ve also donated 2,300 of our unused water bottles to Brighter Futures for them to have when they’re hosting their fundraisers.”

A spokeswoman for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance said:” This is absolutely fantastic news.

“It’s the second year that we’ve had runners raising money for us in this race.

“We are over the moon with the amount of people we’ve had running for us and all the money they’ve raised.

“Without their support, we would not be able to continue our lifesaving service.

“Well done to all the runners.”

Mayor Junab Ali ran the route with fellow councillors Stan Pajak, Tim Swinyard, Nadine Watts, and Emma Bushell.

He said: “It’s a wonderful event that helps put Swindon on the map.

“We should try to encourage people to support its continuation.”

This year’s fundraising total is £118,272.49.

Last year’s New Swindon Half raised more than £70,000 for various good causes.

Exact totals for Prospect Hospice, Brighter Futures, and the Wiltshire Air Ambulance were not available before we went to press.

Many runners' fundraising pages are still open so the final totals raised for each individual charity haven't been totted up yet.