A priest is inviting almost 90 homeless and lonely people for a Christmas lunch - and he sold his car to do it.

John Taylor, from Cliftonville, will take over the Ty8 Restaurant in Northdown Road, Margate, on Christmas Day for a festive celebration.

He is inviting people who have nowhere else to go on December 25 to have lunch with him in two sittings of 44 people.

The first set of visitors will take their seats at noon until 1.15pm with the second starting at 1.30pm until 3pm.

The traditional Christmas menu has been scrapped and instead there will be a choice of spring roll or soup for starters.

For the main course, sweet and sour chicken with rice or Malaysian chicken curry with rice are the options.

Guests can look forward to a serving of cheesecake with fresh cream for their afters.

They all receive a gift of a thermal hat, gloves and chocolate.

Fr Taylor has decided to do the ultimate good deed after he realised people were spending the day alone, which can lead to a decrease in the state of people’s mental health.

He said: “We have more suicides at Christmas and nobody should be alone at that time of year.

“I wrote a letter about what I’m doing and gave it to every single supermarket and in total I got a £5 and a £10 store voucher.

“In fairness they can’t help everyone and then I realised I have to take matters in my own hands.”

Mr Taylor, who is a member of the Roman Catholic church, recently downgraded his car from a Mazda RX8 to an old Ford Fiesta to pay for schemes in the community.

Talking about the preparations being made for the big day he added: “I’m going to be the waiter on the day and two other volunteers will be working in the kitchen.

“Hopefully they’ll be able to help me out when things go wrong.”

Anyone interested in knowing more about the event should contact John Taylor on 07507 706964.