Christmas has come early for a Hackney youth centre for kids with special educational needs.

The engineering team working on the construction of Shoreditch’s High Street’s Principal Tower has pulled off a fundraising coup to build them a games space and an internet room.

As part of their work on the 50-storey apartment block, which is hoping to muscle in on the capital’s iconic skyline once it is completed, the civil engineering team at Careys decided to find a worthy cause in the borough to fulfil their corporate social responsibilty (CSR) for the project.

After looking round the Huddleston Centre, upon recommendation by the Hackney Council for Voluntary Services, it was decided that Careys would hold a charity race night at Momento Bar to raise the £2,000 necessary for the room.

The fundraiser, which involved punters placing bets on televised horse races, raised a whopping £9,000, meaning the centre now has the welcome dilemma of working out how to spend the excess.

Maawura Totoe, a graduate engineer at the Wembley company, told the Gazette: “We were delighted to raise funds for the charity as it was clear to us it was such an incredibly worthy cause.

“The race night is a great way to raise funds as people tend to get quite competitive and tend to spend more which is great for the cause. We hope to be of more help to the centre in the future.”

Last week folk at the Huddleston Centre donned high-visibility jackets and hard hats and welcomed the civil engineering crew as they presented a big cheque for the grand total.

Centre chief exec Lisa Stratton said: “When Careys came to us a few months ago and offered to do a fundraiser we jumped at the chance. All of us at the Huddleston are delighted with their amazing gift and we’re planning how to spend it.

“We’ll be able to update our games room, open the internet room and put some towards general repairs. It’s really important we get some essential IT stuff and update the games the young people enjoy at the youth project.”