Cost of living: Scarborough charity shop turns office into ‘warm room’ amid crisis

Age UK, located on Aberdeen Walk, Scarborough are opening their doors to provide a warm space for people who may need it. The free room will have hot drinks, free wifi, games and magazines as well as people to talk to, if that’s what you want.

Neil Bradbury, the CEO of Age UK Scarborough & District, said: “We’ve had an awful lot of people come into our offices as we approach this cold season and a massive hike in energy bills that people are experiencing at the moment. “We’ve had so many people worried about it, even in the height of the heatwave in the summer, we knew this was going to be a big problem, so we’ve been thinking about doing this all summer really.

“We just thought that we have offices, so we shuffled our meetings so the same meeting room is always free and we can turn it into a nice, cosy warm room and to just open it up for people.”

The room will be open to all ages, but the charity asks that children are supervised.

Morrisons Community Champion donated some biscuits and tea as people have started to use the room, and donations from members of the public are also accepted. Mr Bradbury added: “It’s just an instinctive response to the crisis, and we’re just trying to think about what we can do to help.

“We don’t want to turn away anybody, so it’s open to everyone who might need it.”

The room will be open between 10am and 4pm, Monday to Friday.