Our advice charity secures new home – a boost for communities in South Gloucestershire
- Citizens Advice South Gloucestershire has completed its purchase of new offices in Station Road, Yate
- The charity needed to move as its current premises in Kennedy Way, next to Yate Leisure Centre, is now too small to meet local demand
- The charity aims to have moved all its services over to the new address by late Spring 2025
A vital South Gloucestershire advice charity has bought its first home – meaning it has the capacity to increase the number of people it helps face-to-face.
Citizens Advice South Gloucestershire is moving premises because its current home in Kennedy Way, next to Yate Leisure Centre, is not big enough to keep up with rising demand.
Rising demand necessitated the purchase
The charity helped 7,280 people with 25,827 issues in 2023/24. This is a 23% increase in the number of people helped compared to 2022/23.
Anyone living in South Gloucestershire is able to get free, independent and confidential advice from Citizens Advice South Gloucestershire.
The charity is able to help with issues including but not limited to benefits, debt, energy, food & fuel support, employment, housing and relationship breakdown.
Increasingly it is helping with problems related to the cost-of-living crisis. It now helps roughly ten times as many people access food bank support as it did prior to the pandemic.
The waiting room at the charity’s current home at Kennedy Way is small and frequently full during open-door sessions with attendees sometimes having to wait outside.
In addition, there are only four interview rooms – limiting the number of people who can be helped at one time. Furthermore there is only a small office area for staff and volunteers which is not big enough to host the growing number of staff and volunteers needed to deliver services.
The new offices
The new offices in Badminton Court, Station Road – next to Yate Railway Station – are significantly bigger with space to build up to seven interview rooms.
This means that as the charity continues to grow, it will have the capacity to help almost twice as many people face-to-face per week.
There will also be improved facilities such as a disabled toilet for clients, a training room and enough office space for the whole Volunteer and Staff team to work from the building.
Work is due to begin shortly on the office to create the necessary changes and partitioning and the charity hopes to move in the late Spring of this year.
The charity is receiving help from the public in painting and decorating the space to get it ready for the switchover.
Citizens Advice South Gloucestershire’s Chief Executive Officer Chantal Watts said: “We’re absolutely delighted to have completed our purchase of our new office at Station Road.
“This has been needed for a long time as we have long since outgrown our current home at Kennedy Way due to the rising demand for our services.
“We’d like to thank everyone who has supported the charity’s premises appeal which will go towards our renovation costs and help us get the office ready for the community.
“We’re now in the process of getting the building ready for people to receive advice and we’ll issue further updates when we have a moving date.”
Published 27/01/25.
