Onwards and upwards for community furniture store helping not just those on a low income

Essential Needs is a charity that sells used furniture, household goods and electrical items to people on low income and the general public.

If you are on a low income then you receive a 25% discount. They only opened their doors to the general public last year, having previously just been for those on a low income.

Now Lee Wright has taken over as manager and is looking at ways to move things forward.

Lee said:

We are here to help people when they are looking for good quality furniture, especially when they can’t afford it.

There can be a variety of reasons why personal circumstances can change for someone, but we are here to try and make things easier.

I only recently started with Essential Needs and I have began to look at how we  could make it more in-touch with the community.

We have a new website on the way, will be using Facebook much more and also we will be opening on a Saturday morning for 6-month trial, starting in April.

They rely on support from both donations and from volunteers giving their time – each week they have around 20 people helping out.

They can take electrical goods and they are all tested before re-sale. They have warehouse that has a regular turnover of stock. They are also  starting to sell new beds at keen prices.

If you have time to volunteer or have any items to donate then please contact them on essentialneeds@gmail.com / 01423 870040

Lee added:

We really appreciate all the support we receive from our volunteers and also any donations.

But we can only take items that are in a re-sellable condition and have relevant fire safety labels.

Another benefit to donating is that it helps keep things out of land-fill and you can donate knowing that someone is to likely really benefit from your donation.

You can find the warehouse behind the co-op on the Leeds Road on Back Gladstone Street.