AN ENVIRONMENTAL charity that was forced to find a new home after its premises were devastated by fire last year has to move again.

The Swindon Children’s Scrapstore, which has been based at Bridgemead Business Centre, in Westmead, for the last 18 months, needs to find a new home by the end of November.

The charity was left homeless last January when flames ripped through its former premises in Cheney Manor Industrial Estate.

It moved to Westmead after a successful appeal in the Adver.

Project manager Olivia McCann said: “The landlord has now got planning permission to redevelop the land. We have got to move out before Christmas – he’s starting to demolish by January.

“I am really struggling because all the money we got from the insurance when we had the fire in Cheney Manor has been spent on this place, which was about £28,000. We were expecting to be here for another two years. If there is somebody out there that has a space they are not planning on doing something with we might be in luck.”

The Scrapstore is a low cost community reuse centre which collects businesses’ redundant materials otherwise destined for landfill. Staff store the items at the Scrapstore and visitors or member groups collect what they need for their groups to use in creative play.

Following the fire, which was caused by a fault in the electricity meter, businesses rallied round to help the charity.

“We got offered a few different places and we chose this one,” said Olivia.

“What we are in is about 30,000 square feet but beggars can’t be choosers, I’ll take whatever we can get. We need a minimum of 5,000 sqft, but 20,000 would be brilliant. The problem we have got is that our money went into redeveloping this site. All the money we had is gone. “Our reserve is about £9,000 so it doesn’t leave us a lot of money for rent. “We pay rates for this building which are £60,000 a year.”

Anyone who can help can contact Olivia on 01793 513982 or email olivia@scrapstore.co.uk.