A SALISBURY furniture retailer is set to become a drop-off point for used furniture to support the Trussell Trust.

A World of Furniture has offered its Salisbury store as a drop-off point. The charity will then upcycle the furniture and sell it in its shops to help support those in need.

The managing director of the family firm, Mark Hotson, has been a long term supporter of the charity and already sponsors boxes the emergency food charity sends out. Last year the firm was also responsible for the delivery of more than 400 hampers across the local region over the Christmas period.

Mr Hotson said: “Originally I wanted us to become a food collection point, but our proximity to Tesco meant this wasn’t really feasible and so I suggested to the Trussell Trust that we could provide more support by becoming a centre where people could bring their old solid wood furniture and drop it off before possibly taking a look round our store to choose a replacement.”

The Trussel Trust has welcomed the business's involvement in the pilot project.

Mark Ward from the Trussell Trust's Salisbury headquarters, said: “We welcomed Mark Hotson’s involvement in this pilot project and hopefully if it is successful in the Salisbury store, it is something that can be repeated in A World of Furniture’s Poole, Southampton and Blandford stores too.”

Speaking about the charity's work and how it has adapted, Mr Ward, added: “The intention has always been to feed people only in short term crisis, but as time has moved forward we have seen people with more entrenched issues. This has resulted in us designing a service called More than Food which enables people to deal with their underlying financial and other issues – welfare, housing, budgeting etc. We want to help people to stop visiting foodbanks and to be able to live sustainable lives.

“In Salisbury we started to develop social enterprises with our first shop in 2006 which has grown to 14 with more planned. These are supported by sourcing warehouses and workshops which upcycle goods and provide a lot of volunteering and training opportunities often for people who struggle to enter the employment market. It has the added benefit of saving thousands of tonnes of waste entering landfill which can be recycled.”

The final details regarding the drop-off point are still being finalised but it is hoped it will be up and running later on in the year.