A BUCKS charity has formed three ‘ground breaking’ partnerships which could pave the way for a £20million investment into brain tumour research.

The three partnerships and three new centres of excellence have been announced after Beaconsfield Mayor, Sandy Saunders, was a guest at the Speakers House last week.

These new centres and partnerships will ensure the good work and research of local Brain Tumour Research charity will be continued.

Mayor Saunders said: “The news today that three new Centres of Excellence will be entering a funding partnership with Brain Tumour Research, thereby ensuring that research will be continuous and sustained, is really welcome to all those families, including mine, impacted by brain tumours.”

The mayor launched Brain Tumour Research in 2009.

His work with the charity developed after the death of his eldest daughter Diana, a former Deputy Head Girl at Beaconsfield High School in 1977.

Diana, who gained a double first at Oxford and was mother to three sons was diagnosed with a brain tumour in February 2002. 23 days after the diagnosis she died, 90 days after that the Diana Ford Trust (now Brain Tumour Research) was established.

Mayor Saunders added: “For so long, this disease has been the “Cinderella cancer”. This planned investment brings fresh hope that more effective treatments and ultimately a cure will be found… and soon.”