NHS ‘floored’ by donation to construct a food centre
A MOORLANDS company has donated flooring material to help construct a food distribution centre to provide meals for NHS staff.
Cheddleton based F Ball and Co. Ltd is helping to support frontline NHS workers as part of Salutethenhs.org, a major non-profit initiative, which aims to provide one million nutritious, free meals to these vital NHS staff over a three-month period as they fight the coronavirus pandemic.
The company has donated floor preparation materials and adhesive to install temporary flooring at a former aircraft hangar in Bicester which has been transformed into a food distribution centre for the duration of the project.
The brainchild of former Mclaren boss Ron Dennis CBE and his daughter Dr Charlotte Hall, an NHS anaesthetist, Salutethenhs.org, delivers nutritious and ready-to-eat ‘BOOST’ meal packs to NHS doctors and nurses working on the front line and those infected and self-isolating at home.
The business-led initiative brings together a group of leading food, logistics, packaging and other specialists including supermarket giant Tesco, which has donated the food for the meals.
The ‘BOOST’ meals will be fulfilled at the purpose-designed facility in ‘Hangar 113,’ a former aircraft hangar, now an events space at the Bicester Heritage site.
The installation of vinyl safety flooring over a 1,500 m2 area of the hangar was undertaken by flooring contractors John Butler Contracts of Nottingham.
Because the hangar is a designated heritage building, only minimal preparation work could be undertaken on the building’s existing concrete floor, and an F Ball loose-lay isolator membrane was installed so that the original condition of the surface will be preserved when floorcoverings are removed at a later date.
The John Butler Contracts team then installed safety flooring, provided by commercial flooring specialists, Techfloor, based in Blackburn, using an F Ball adhesive.
Commenting on the project, F Ball managing director, Mark Hughes, said: “We’re delighted to be involved in such a fantastic initiative as Salutethenhs. org, helping to support the incredible work of the doctors and nurses putting themselves on the line as they battle through the coronavirus crisis.”