The Salisbury branch of Samaritans left its home of more than fifty years at the end of May, moving to two adjoining business units at the Barnack Business Centre in the city. Units 10 and 11 had been adapted and carefully designed to provide purpose-built spacious accommodation allowing the branch to grow and expand its primary purpose of being available at any time of day or night, every day of the year, to listen to and offer emotional support to callers who are in distress.
Paul Jordan, branch director, said "Two years ago we made the decision to move premises as we were unable to expand our service provision within our cramped quarters in Milford Street. A local builder spent two months converting the two bare empty units into a purpose-built centre where we can have up to four volunteers on duty at a time rather than the two we could house at Milford Street. We also gain a large conference room, so we can now run all our meetings and Samaritan training courses in our own premises rather than having to hire or borrow spaces from other organisations. The new centre has level access and facilities, and is all on the ground floor, so for the first time we also have good disabled access. Without exception, our volunteers are really happy with the new premises!
" 'Project move' was managed in-house by a small, dedicated team of volunteers who gave many extra 'Samaritan' hours to ensure the move was as efficient as possible and the branch was closed for just one week. I'm so grateful to everyone who helped make this happen and we look forward to training many more would-be Samaritans at our new centre."