BoB 2023 Building Projects Announced

NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION CHARITY Band of Builders has announced this year’s building projects to help construction workers battling illness or injury, making a life-changing difference to them and their families.

The organisation, known as BoB, is gearing up for five projects – three of which require planning permission – in Suffolk, North Yorkshire, Cornwall, Surrey and South Wales.

Beneficiaries include a trainee bricklayer who suffered a catastrophic brain aneurysm; the eight-year-old son of a general builder, who became quadriplegic after contracting meningococcal septicaemia; and a builders’ merchant employee who was left paralysed from the waist down after a spinal abscess.

Band of Builders Operations Director Tony Steel says that planning is well underway for the projects, and the charity is already galvanising support from its 50,000-strong community of volunteers and supporters.

“It’s a heart-breaking process reading all of the applications that we receive from members of the construction industry and their families – who all desperately need help,” said Tony.

“We selected a number of projects that met our criteria and put them forward to the board of trustees, who have given us the go-ahead to plan and deliver five projects this year.”

2022 BoB project for former bricklayer Kevin McGowan

BoB 2023 Building Projects

The projects include:

• Building an extension for a family in Suffolk so that their 20-year-old son can finally return home after more than two years spent in hospital and, latterly, a specialist neurological care centre after suffering a catastrophic brain aneurysm.
• A complete conversion of the North Yorkshire family home of an eight-year-old son of a builder, who lost both legs at the knee and became quadriplegic after contracting meningococcal septicaemia on Christmas Day in 2019.
• Creating a downstairs bedroom and wet room at the Surrey home of a builders’ merchant employee who was left paralysed from the waist down.
• Creating a downstairs wet room for a former joiner in South Wales who is now a wheelchair user after suffering a severe stroke. The family have also asked if the project can include creating a path to make it easier to get him in and out of the house.
• Adapting the kitchen for a Cornwall bricklayer with multiple sclerosis.

The charity has this year already completed the second phase of a project that started last October – to level the ground floor and widen doorways at the Herefordshire home of Martin Wilks, a builder who was left paralysed after a fall.

As well as enlisting support from volunteers to sign up for the projects, Band of Builders is also having conversations with its partners and sponsors to procure the materials it will need to complete each project. The charity is backed by major names in the construction industry, including Jewson, Gibbs & Dandy, CT1, Talasey and DEWALT.

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