News

Worcester Bosch partner with Angellica Bell to bring warmth to local community hub

Published: 06-10-2023

We are delighted to have brought warmth to another community space in need through our Warming Your Community initiative, this time offering support to the Mayfield Garden Centre.

Based in Southampton, Mayfield Garden Centre and café is run by Solent Mind, a mental health charity. As a social enterprise and a subsidiary of Solent Mind, the mission of the centre is to bring about positive change for people struggling with their mental health, through gardening.

All profits from the business are channelled directly into funding mental health programmes for local people, including but not limited to Gardening for Dementia, Wellbeing Programmes and Digital Skills Training.

Following the difficulties of rising heating costs last winter, it has proven extremely difficult to maintain warmth in the centre, which is vital to ensuring it stays a safe and welcoming space.

Our Warming Your Community initiative, launched in July 2021, was set up to offer help to community spaces struggling to heat their buildings due to rising energy costs and the cost of living crisis, by gifting boiler systems free of charge, and organising for local installers to fit the system.

We encourage anyone who knows a worthy community cause to nominate them, just as Worcester Accredited Installer Tareq Englefield of Roost Heating did with the Mayfield Garden Centre. Having supported the business for a long time and seen first-hand the positive impact of the centre within the community, Tareq was keen to put the hub forward for nomination. He was also more than happy to take care of the installation free of charge, helping to get the centre up and running with a brand new, efficient boiler, and to bring warmth back to a community who needed it most.

On the day of installation, whilst Tareq installed a brand new Greenstar 8000 Life boiler, donated by ourselves, TV presenter Angellica Bell also joined in on the activities. Angellica, who is passionate about both greener heating and championing consumers, has teamed up with us on multiple occasions, working on campaigns to further educate and support people across the UK with their home heating.

At Mayfield Garden Centre, she spent the day speaking with Community and Wellbeing Manager Jude Gardener, to find out more about the great work of the Centre, as well as taking part in the Gardening for Dementia group, which was made up of families and carers from the local community.  By the end of the session, Jude Gardener praised the Warming Your Community programme wholeheartedly: ‘It’s fantastic for us. It’s a huge weight off our minds. Thanks to Worcester Bosch for their Warming Your Community initiative.’

Upon completion of the installation, Tareq echoed this sentiment: ‘We’re really happy to have installed this boiler for Mayfield Garden Centre. This boiler is going to be massively more efficient, not just in gas but also in electricity.’

If you know a community space which you feel could benefit from a brand new heating system, please do nominate them today at: https://alpha.worcester-bosch.co.uk/warming-your-community