Great Dunham couple donates Freelander to Cars for Ukraine

Josephine and Gordon Phillips, from Great Dunham, between Swaffham and Dereham, heard of a scheme where people could donate old vehicles to the country and handed over the keys to her Land Rover Freelander.

Mrs Phillips discovered the volunteers last month when reading an article in The Telegraph regarding a letter from Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, who wrote to Sadiq Khan asking if vehicles, particularly 4x4, being scrapped as a result of the ultra-low emission zone scheme, which allows people to claim a one-off payment of £2,000 if they scrap a vehicle which does not comply, instead could be donated to Ukraine.

His request was denied due to not meeting the “legal threshold”.

The story mentioned Cars for Ukraine, a group of volunteers who have been driving donated 4x4s to the front line. Her husband, Gordon, said: “It is not worth a huge amount of money, our garage said when it was last MOT perhaps next year would be expensive to MOT it again.

The Landrover Freeland leaves the home of Josephine and Gordon Phillips in Great Dunham as will head to Ukraine to help out people there (Image: Gordon Phillips)

“We were thinking of selling it and had already bought another car, but after reading this she decided to do some good in the world.

“They need help from all over the place, and it feels like a good thing to do.”

She wrote an email to the group and a man called Ivan responded. The pair arranged for a friend of his to come to their home and pick up the car.

It will now travel 1,276 miles to Lviv, as the driver will personally deliver a second vehicle, and will keep the Norfolk couple updated on its progress.

“The guy who picked it up had photos from his first journey, they take them apart, paint them green and get them ready to go out,” Mr Phillips added.

He hopes their story will inspire other people in Norfolk to donate similar vehicles to help.