Our Exciting New Home On Tweed Street

Wednesday 21^st December

Dear friends and supporters, Seasons Greetings to you all!

As many you know for some time Berwick & District Cancer Support Group has been looking for a permanent home. In 2018 we purchased the former ATS site in Church Street with the view to develop a much-needed base for our charity. Unfortunately owing to several factors not least, Brexit, Covid and international crises, the cost of building on the site exceeded our resources. Although our initial planning proposal was almost unanimously supported by those in our community and beyond, further lengthily delays were forced upon us due to a very small number of objections which resulted in it becoming impossible for us to finance the Church Street development. We endeavoured to find additional funds, but £500k is not easy to come by. We therefore began looking for other potential properties, again not an easy task in Berwick.

But we can now announce, with a great deal of festive fanfare and excitement, Berwick Cancer Cars are celebrating Christmas a little early this year as today we signed the documents giving us ownership of the former St john’s Ambulance Building on Tweed Street. Although the building has been disused for over two years it is in very good condition and also comes with a gated car park, safely accommodating our fleet of Cancer Cars. In the New Year we will be working to bring the site up to the standard we need to serve our clients and volunteers and to take us into the next stage of our development.

Cllr.  Paul Jackson, Chair of Trustees said: “Acquiring the Tweed Street premises has been the best Christmas present for us. The costs of developing the ATS site were ultimately too great for us alone, but here we get a ready built site that fits our needs and at a reasonable cost. It will be an exciting New Year when we can open our new home to the public.“ 

Andrew Smith, Chair of the Volunteers Committee said: “To finally be announcing a home for our beloved Cancer Cars in our 30^th Anniversary Year is a dream come true for our members and supporters.  We have been blessed by the support of Asda Tweedmouth but we can soon give them their busy car parking spaces back.  I shall look forward to welcoming you all into our new home and the exciting possibilities it will give us in the New Year!”

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After 30 years of proud service to the Berwick & District community we are thrilled to finally have a place we can call “our home”.

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Throughout our long journey and search for a place to call home the kind support shown to our charity has been humbling and truly remarkable and, for the present, the former ATS site on Church Street will remain under our control. We will keep everyone updated as work progresses on our exciting new base and an opening date is announced – we very much look forward to welcoming you all into our “new home on Tweed Street”!