A Cirencester scout group is now home and dry after Wain Homes stepped in to fix their leaky roof.
The roof of the hut on Berkley Close used by the 1st South Cerney Scouts needed urgent repairs and the group contacted Wain Homes, which is building new homes nearby at the Saxon Meadows development.
Scout leader, Daniel Sweet, explained: “Our scout hut is owned by the Council and we rent it from them and have to look after the maintenance.
“The roof was becoming increasingly leaky and we had been looking at quotes of £10,000 to £20,000 to do the work, an amount which we did not have and which we had no hope of raising.
“As we had been allowing Wain Homes to use our parking facilities for some of their contractors we contacted them and they were only too willing to repay our favour and jumped into action to fix our roof. It is a brilliant example of good neighbours working well together and helping each other out.”
The scout hut is a well-used and much-needed community asset, accommodating around 65 children a week attending Beavers, Cubs and Scout clubs. As well as completely re-roofing the building, Wain Homes has also agreed to resurface the car park.
Wain Homes contracts manager, Nat Payne, said: “It was a pleasure to work on Saxon Meadows and be welcomed by the village. The Scouts kindly allowed us to use their car park and at the end of the build we got our skilled trades to strip back the roof and replace everything with new batons, felt and tiles.
“It is always good to help people in the communities where we build and our special thanks go out to Combined Scaffolding and Sharland Roofing for their help on the project.”
Daniel added: “The numbers of youngsters attending the different groups continues to grow as the village grows and knowing the hut is now warm and watertight means we can spend funds on other things.
“Many of our children were fascinated by the build process and learned a lot from watching both the houses being built and seeing their own hut get transformed.
“It really has been a game-changer for us and we cannot thank Wain Homes enough.”