Families living at our St James Lodge housing scheme are enjoying a brand new outdoor play area and garden, thanks to a ‘Garden SOS’ style project.
St James Lodge in King’s Lynn houses homeless families and helps them transition into permanent housing. The newly landscaped space at the scheme now has colourful play equipment, picnic tables and raised plant beds.
The project took shape after Broadland provided £25,000 and local companies donated materials and equipment. Our skilled Estates Services team and other Broadland staff and contractors volunteered hours of their labour to make it happen.
The garden and play area were opened by St James Lodge tenant Jenna Gould (pictured above, left) and her children. Also attending were Procurement Officer Will Hunter Rowe and Housing Manager Katie Docherty, who oversaw the project (pictured above, centre and right).
This is so brilliant, it’s somewhere for the kids to come out and let off steam. It was tough during lockdown not having an outside space for them to play, and with more restrictions possibly to come, this will be fantastic.
Broadland tenant, Jenna Gould
After the delay caused by Coronavirus, it’s really rewarding to see this open. It is the fruit of many hours of volunteer labour, and a fabulous joint effort with our contractors and with local businesses which have donated materials.
Lockdown demonstrated just how important outside space is for people’s wellbeing, so this couldn’t have come at a better time.
Will Hunter Rowe, Procurement Officer
St James Lodge consists of 20 flats and studios, and is designed to provide short- and medium-term accommodation for homeless people and homeless families with support needs, all of whom must have a local connection.
Local businesses which contributed to the project were:
- Ben Burgess
- Campbell Tickell
- CJ Yardley
- CLC Contractors
- Efficiency East Midlands
- Johnstone’s Trade Paints
- Kevin Cogman
- Newline Anglia
- PTS Plumbing Trade Supplies
- Reconomy
- Rexel
- Travis Perkins