A campaign has been launched in Skegness to buy and convert a bus into a homeless shelter.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00A new campaign has been launched in Skegness to raise funds to buy a decommissioned bus
00:08and convert it into an emergency shelter for the homeless.
00:11Yeah, it's a beer I came up with for a mobile double-decker bus shelter that provides sleeping
00:20accommodation. Obviously, it'll be really handy at the weekends because there's nothing
00:29where they're getting any help. We've just had Storm Bertie and a lot of them were
00:34absolutely drenched through. Duggee was one of them.
00:39Yeah, you're with some of the homeless in Skegness today, aren't you?
00:49Where we are at the minute, we're at the boating lake
00:53in Skegness. This is where they sleep in. I don't know if you can see that.
00:59This is... So, does it have a shelter with it?
01:04It's got a shelter. It's sort of got a roof over it. You're just standing in the middle.
01:10You can see it now, can't you? Yeah, I can see it. It's actually the old
01:15boating lake, isn't it? Yeah, the lake's over there.
01:19Yeah. So, you can see Skegness in the background.
01:25But yeah, the general idea is we need two more trustees. We've got one at the moment
01:33who's a local hotelier that you've spoken to, I believe.
01:39I've been wanting to do something like this for a long, long time, especially in Skegness
01:43because there's nothing. And I didn't know how to approach anything. And I was in the
01:47Salvation Army at the time. Beatty was having a shower. She'd come out of the shower and I'd
01:52go to talk. And I said, whatever you do, don't let that gentleman go. And I walked out because
01:58he was talking to the alcohol team, wasn't he? And then I said to Beatty, I said, go
02:04and get that gentleman's number. I like this idea. And I approached Richard. He didn't
02:09approach me. I approached him. I think this is a brilliant idea. I think this can go on,
02:14but we do need that support because it is the weather and everything. And obviously,
02:22the drug system is getting out of hand, especially with organs. They do really need help.
02:28And I'm a big fan of Richard and my partner.
02:34Yeah. So, what we need at the minute is to raise £1,800 so that we can actually register
02:43as a charity. And then fees will also pay for all the legal paperwork that we need.
02:50And then we can raise, you know, we can approach proper organisations then, like apply for lottery
02:56grants or the Prince's Trust or local funding from local authority, you know, to keep everything up
03:04and running and to provide a bus or funding for a bus. Or ideally, any bus companies that are
03:11decommissioning the bus. And then we'll probably find a local business, you know, that could
03:17specialise in carpentry and joinery and fit it out with the beds that we need.
03:23We're open to put cooking facilities on it so that they could just have a warm meal at night
03:28over the weekend or even in the week. And then we've also got a problem with, you know,
03:33finding somewhere to park the bus. So, it's not an easy task, you know, but if the public,
03:39I know the people at Skagenets are generous, but it's the wider public as well. You know,
03:44if we can get people to donate to the GoFundMe donate page and we get this money together,
03:51we can actually see this coming together. And, you know, it's really immensely going to help
03:57everybody. And people will be able to find the link to that JustGiving page on the article that
04:05is with this video. So, thank you, Richard, for explaining what your campaign is all about. And
04:12thank you, Dougie, also for giving us an insight into your life on the streets of Skagenets.