St Albans / Hemel Hempstead, 14 December 2020 - Over 500 items of surplus furniture is being donated to NHS trusts, charities and schools as Hertfordshire construction giant, BAM, re-locates its South East operations from St Albans to Hemel Hempstead.
The firm, based at Centrium Business Park which it built itself, is moving to Breakspear Park in Hemel Hempstead, alongside its UK headquarters.
The donations are being arranged via collection enterprise Collecteco.
Adam Harding, Director of BAM Construction in the South East, said:
‘Donating our furniture is not only helping others but it also saves waste. The donations allow those receiving the furniture to spend their money on more important things.
One recipient was Ruislip Baptist Church which received some of BAM’s old office furniture including much needed desks and lockable cupboards which would have cost the church in the region of £3,000 if purchased new.
Senior Minister at Ruislip Baptist Church Rev Derek Page, said: ‘We’re extremely grateful for the furniture. As a charitable organisation focused on the needs of the community around us, it’s hard for us to justify spending donations on office furniture particularly during the current pandemic. The new furniture has now been set up in the church office and once we’re all back it will make a real difference to our staff. We are also pleased to be able to give good quality furniture a new home.’
Collecteco Director Steve Sliney, said: ‘The 500 items of furniture donated by BAM, diverted over 20 tonnes of good quality, modern kit from recycling, resulting avoiding 19,237 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere and saving tens of thousands of pounds if the community had had to buy new furniture instead.’
Regional Director – South East Adam Harding, added:
‘Collecteco were fantastic in assisting us and we plan to utilise them where we can in future projects. Our new and improved office space allows us to be based on one main floor area, alongside some informal collaboration areas for smaller teams. We will also benefit from having more advanced meeting spaces with up to date Audio/ Visual Conference Systems, allowing better communication across the virtual network.’
BAM’s South East team employs 160 full-time staff with around 110 of them working on projects across the region. These include Chiltern Lifestyle Centre in Amersham, Balliol College in Oxford, and Chiltern Hills Academy in Chesham.
During 2019 the South East team’s people raised over £43,000 for charities and the community through fundraising, donations, and sponsorship.