Hospice’s Donation Centre is on the move

St Nicholas Hospice Care’s Chapel Pond Hill Donation Centre has found a new home, and the charity is excited to move into new premises in the coming months.

Staying in Bury St Edmunds, the charity’s Donation Centre will be relocating to the Bartons Retail Park, on Barton Road. This will mean that the Hospice, which cares for those across West Suffolk and Thetford facing dying, caring and grief, will be able to significantly enhance its presence on the retail park, which is also home to one of its retail stores.

Karen Fulcher, the Hospice’s Head of Retail and Catering, said: “We are also excited that we have been able to take advantage of the opportunity to extend our existing store into the unoccupied site next door to our Barton Road shop and move our Donation Centre onto the Bartons Retail Park.

“Having it next to our existing store makes perfect sense for us, and it represents a significant leap forward in what we will be able to achieve. With an extended shop space, we will be able to offer more high-quality pre-loved goods and furniture for sale, and it will also provide a lovely environment for our warehouse and retail-based office staff who will also be making the move.

“We’ll also be on the lookout for more volunteers to support us, so if you’re interested in giving you time to us, please get in touch.”

The new shop space will house all furniture and home items, and there will be a new card and gift shop and other customer space.

In the existing shop space, clothing and accessories will expand taking over the whole of the first floor. The ground floor becoming a clearance shop housing items that would normally be sold at one of the hospice’s Donation Centre sale days, which will be discontinued, as shoppers will be able to take advantage of the same great prices and products throughout the week, instead of waiting for the first Saturday of the month.

The charity’s final sale day at Chapel Pond Hill will be on June 1 and it will be a moving sale with all furniture items priced at £10 or less.

Due to the high level of customers expected, staff will be monitoring the number of people in the Donation Centre, so people may need to wait before entering. For health and safety reasons, children under 10 are not allowed in the centre.

Darren Devine, St Nic’s House Clearance and Retail Support Manager, said: “Our Donation Centre sale days have proved incredibly popular, and we are grateful to all our customers who have supported them over the years and helped raise thousands for the work of St Nic’s.

“We are excited that our new home will mean that people won’t have to wait for one sale day a month, instead they’ll be able to pop down anytime we’re open and take advantage of our great prices and quality items.”

You can find out more about the sale by clicking here.

While there is not an exact date for the re-opening of the improved store and Donation Centre, the charity hopes late July into early August could be possible.

To enable the relocation from June 10, supporters will no longer be able to drop off donated items at the Chapel Pond Hill Donation Centre. People are kindly being asked to keep hold of any items and take them to the new site from Monday, 1 July. From this date, items will be accepted from 8.30am-12.30pm, Monday to Friday.

Retail teams, including Donation Centre staff, e-Commerce, House Clearance and Delivery and Collection Teams, will start to move to the new location between June 10 and 28, and they should be fully operational at their new home by July 1. Teams will continue to support the work of the Hospice during the move.

Karen adds: “We are still working on timescales, and there will be some building works that need to take place, and we will be working with contractors to complete these, but we are working to get everything in place so we can move in as quickly and smoothly as possible to ensure minimum disruption to our supporters and donors. We thank everyone in advance for their patience and understanding.”

St Nic’s hopes to be able to share more details as the move progresses and those who want to keep up-to-date should keep checking the news section on our website or keep an eye on our social media pages.