Southampton Hospital Charity’s Bursledon House provides a homely and welcoming environment in order to support, care and manage children’s physical, psychological, educational and social needs from the ages of 0-16 years. Based on the edge of the Southampton General site, Bursledon House offers its own gardens and onsite school. Their inpatient environment is nurturing, friendly, informal and yet structured enough to help the young person to feel safe.

The Bursledon House team offers particular support to teenagers, recognising that teenagers require their own space in which they can flourish.

Hilary Garrett, Senior Sister at Bursledon House explains:

“As part of their social development and confidence-building it is vital for our teenagers to have a physical space where they can relax, play music, games or watch a film and have the opportunity to communicate with each other. Furthermore, this space needs to be suitable for our teenage group and away from the younger patients. They also like some privacy from adults and we need to give them a safe environment to do this and to develop their teenage identity, with the safety net of staff nearby.”

So why did Greenspan get involved?

“Rod Morton (Director, Greenspan Projects Ltd) is passionate about charitable work and continues to identify areas of real need within communities. On a mission to find a suitable charitable project, Rod discovered Bursledon House and immediately recognised the fantastic work that they do with young people and wanted to help them in some way. It became apparent that there was a very real need for a new outdoor area for older children.

Hilary explained: “Our old teenagers’ hut had become unusable as it was in need of significant repairs or in fact demolition. We were desperate for a source of funding to make a new hut possible.”

Taking this need on board, Rod immediately acted and pulled the necessary resources together to enable the transformation of the outdoor space. The idea was pitched to a group of local businesses and £15,000 was raised to make it happen. Greenspan worked with Southampton Hospital to ensure that the relevant planning permission for the new build was swiftly in place.

With a green light from the planners, Rod and the Greenspan team fully project managed the venture from start to finish, which included the full design and planning stage, demolition of the old hut, and the construction of the new hut.

A fantastic official opening event was organised with the support of the RRT (Rapid Response Team) Charity. The weather was kind and the event was a great success, held in the garden at Bursledon House, guests from the hospital, charities and the community enjoyed a bbq and music by live bands.

Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust Chair – Peter Hollins (pictured above alongside Rod Morton, Greenspan Projects Ltd Director) attended the official opening, thanking Rod and the Greenspan team for their work in bringing the charity project to fruition.

What did Greenspan’s support mean to Bursledon House?

Hilary explained: “We were overjoyed to have an offer of help from Greenspan. We had managed to raise funding for furniture and fittings, but the offer of fundraising to supply and build a brand-new hut was wonderful. Greenspan were very professional and our meetings with Brett Fowler (www.fulfiluk.com), Rod Morton and others proved extremely helpful in terms of mapping out what we needed and how to proceed. I don’t believe we would have a new hut without Greenspan’s assistance. Our team are passionate about fundraising and improving the unit, but it is difficult to raise that amount of funding and I believe we would still be trying for some time to come. We are so grateful for the fundraising, the planning and the orchestration of the build. The generosity of the Greenspan team, both in terms of time, donations, effort and also going the extra mile was outstanding and they have given both our young persons and staff a great facility. We couldn’t not have done it without Greenspan”.

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