As part of its James Hutton Institute Advanced Plant Growth Centre and International Barley Hub project, the contractor provided much-needed repairs to an accessible toilet at The Circle.

The Circle, an award-winning social enterprise based in Dundee and Glasgow, launched an appeal to repair its accessible toilet at Dudhope Castle. The organisation was forced to close off the only accessible toilet at its Dudhope Castle hub due to severe damage from a leak that was found in January this year.

A crowdfunding campaign was launched at the start of February to raise funds to cover the repairs. The organisation successfully raised £5,770 from 62 supporters in 28 days.

The publicity of the campaign caught the attention of McLaughlin & Harvey’s responsible business lead Jane Elder.

”We are delighted to have been able to help The Circle,” Jane said. “At McLaughlin & Harvey, we actively support communities with the greatest need through our You Matter Communities Scheme, embodying our values of care, commitment, and collaboration. The repairs to the accessible toilet will make a difference to the service users and the visitors at The Circle making their Dudhope Castle hub a more welcoming place for everyone.”

As part of its work to contribute to healthy and resilient communities by building capacity amongst community organisations to enable community-led solutions to local challenges, McLaughlin & Harvey works with its supply chain partners to create local employment opportunities and proactively develop the skills and awareness of employees to tackle health inequalities and support the most vulnerable in its communities.

The contractor reached out to its local supply chain with Prime Joinery Solutions Ltd, Emtec Building Services, Westend Flooring, Smith Brothers Stores and Neville Lumb Bathrooms and Washrooms offering to carry out the repairs at no cost to The Circle. The toilet has been repaired and is now officially open.

The Circle’s founder and CEO, Kirsty Thomson, said: “We’re so grateful for the amazing generosity of our supporters and to McLaughlin & Harvey for offering to complete this work for us. It means so much that we’ll be able to reopen our accessible toilet and now do further work to make the building more accessible.”

The funds that were raised by The Circle will be earmarked for additional repair works at Dudhope Castle to make the building safer and more accessible.

Daniëlle Gaffney du Plooy, co-manager and founder at Uppertunity, added: “Having the disabled access toilet back open has meant some of our clients have been able to return, as well as stay longer. It has also meant we can host events for everyone, rather than limit who can attend the event. It means everyone can enjoy time together without limitations.”

McLaughlin & Harvey said it was grateful to its supply chain members for undertaking the work free of charge allowing The Circle to use the funds raised through its recent  crowdfunding to go towards other much-needed repairs.

James Hendry, operations manager at Emtec Building Services, said: “It was unfortunate to hear that The Circle’s toilet had been badly damaged which would have meant it wasn’t as accessible to its community. As we are a local business, we decided to assist with helping the social enterprise to ensure it could be open to the whole community.

“Emtec Building Services is committed to supporting the local community which can be demonstrated via our apprenticeship schemes that have seen over 20 apprentices employed since our Dundee office opened five years ago and we felt that by providing our expertise we could help this local organisation thus assisting the local community further. We are very grateful to our fantastic supply chain members who donated generously to this cause. Thanks to Michael Quinn at Neville Lumb, Andy Duguid, and Grant Purdom of Smith Brothers Dundee.”

Alan Moir, director at Prime Joinery Solutions Ltd, added: “Prime Joinery were happy to participate in the making good of The Circle premises. It was a worthwhile exercise for a great cause.”