Children's hospice 'devastated' after one of their vans is stolen

A children's hospice based in Wetherby say it will cost them thousands to replace a van they had stolen.

Martin House Children's Hospice rely heavily on their vans to transport furniture and other goods from their shops or collect donations, but discovered last week their largest van was taken from Thorp Arch Industrial Estate.

The hospice generates majority of their funds from sales in their stores, with over £167,000 raised in November 2021 alone.

The charity saw a loss of around £2.2m as a result of covid and now say this couldn't have happened at a worse time.

Rebecca Wynne, Director of Income Generation, Marketing & Communications at Martin House Hospice, said:

"It's quite devastating for us as an organisation as we rely heavily on our retail operation and our vans. Our vans are vital in enabling us to move stock around from different shops and to gather and collect stock donations.

"It's really upsetting that somebody would do that to a children's hospice. We get very little government funding and it's really hard for us to raise money each year. It costs our hospice around £8m a year just to open our doors and for someone to take from us something that we worked hard to pay for is extremely upsetting.

"We saw a loss of around £2.2m during covid and now we're struggling to fulfil what we need to fulfil because someone has stolen our van. That's on top of what has already been an incredibly challenging 18 months."

The charity have been inundated with support from the public, offering cash donations and hire vans free of charge until they can replace the stolen one.

Rebecca, added:

"We rely solely on the support from the local community to help us to deliver our care and the retail arm of that is huge. Not having that van is going to have a significant impact on our ability to raise those funds.

"We're so grateful to those who've helped us out already. We're working with our insurers to work out the cost of the van and it's expected to be around £18,000 but that's money we shouldn't be having to spend."

A report from West Yorkshire Police said:

"Police are appealing for information after a Mercedes Sprinter panel van was stolen from Thorp Arch Trading Estate.

"The theft is believed to have occurred between 6pm on 5 January and 7am on 6 January.

"Anyone with information that may assist is asked to contact police in Leeds on 101 or by using the West Yorkshire Police website, quoting crime reference 13220007544.

"Information can also be reported anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online."

Martin House Children's Hospice have shops in Acomb, Boston Spa, Garforth, Harrogate, Headingley, Ilkley, Knaresborough, Ripon, Selby, Skipton, Wetherby and Yeadon, and their furniture warehouse is at Thorp Arch, where the van was stolen from.