Burdens Wales & West Charity Update

On Monday 12th November work started on the long awaited boathouse extension to the SARA
(Severn Area Rescue Association) Chepstow Rescue Station. When the £300,000 project is
complete it will enable SARA to keep its front-line rescue boats and emergency response vehicles under one roof, thus improving emergency response times and equipment reliability as well as providing a purpose built classroom for community awareness of water safety on the
dangerous River Severn and estuary.

With Burdens being such important supporters of the station build we thought that it was only right to invite a representative of the Company to attend. We kicked the whole thing off with a ceremonial ground breaking. The ground breaking was made by Arthur Burden with support from senior SARA members and the Managing Director of G Hughes the construction company.

Because we don’t currently have the full amount of funding that we require, we have decided to split the project into two stages. We have started on the first stage which will take us to a sealed secure shell with the roof on. Although the bill has been estimated as £165,000 to this point we are hoping that with support from Burdens as our supplier we’ll be able to stretch our current pledges and donations (totalling £80,000) as far as possible and hopefully the remaining £85,000 will be raised between now and the end of the first phase. 

After this we’ll have to work really hard to get the money, fixtures and fittings together for the second stage and then the build can be completed. All in all though things are starting to look really positive - there are some very excited people around SARA at the moment looking forward to their new station.

By Dave Trevelyan (Customer Services Project Leader)