Spacious new premises for Shrewsbury’s Hope House store
Hope House Children’s Hospices has announced it is to relocate its Shrewsbury town centre store in a move prompted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The charity, which provides vital care and support to terminally ill children from across Shropshire, Mid and North Wales, has 14 shops across the region.
They provide a vital contribution to the £6.5 million needed every year to fund services to families including respite and end-of-life care.
The relocation is from the current store in Shoplatch to a unit almost twice the size next to Percy Thrower’s Garden Centre in Oteley Road, and will complement the charity’s other Shrewsbury store – a furniture shop on the Lancaster Retail Park, which has been operating as a general store since reopening last month.
Hope House Commercial Director Andrew Fergus said the charity was excited by the move to a much more spacious store, where better access will make it much easier to comply with new measures to keep customers, volunteers and staff safe. The new store also benefits from free parking making it easier for supporters to drive up and drop off donations.
“One of our key safety measures is to isolate all donations of stock for 72 hours before sorting, and this was just not practical in the town centre store. Our new premises will have plenty of room for social distancing and hand sanitizing stations too,” he said.
“Our two members of staff have both been offered roles in the new store and we hope that many of our existing volunteers will be able to join us, as well as new volunteers.”
Work will begin shortly to equip the new store for a grand opening in September.
