Summary report due in June 2008. Reserve your copy

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• Sponsorship
• Events
• School projects
• Local training
• Construction training
• Canada Water
• Regent’s Place

In 2007/08 British Land gave 0.4% of pre-tax profit to provide support to staff volunteering initiatives, community projects and sponsorship. This benefited a range of organisations and people including:

• Youth projects: British Land Chess Challenge, Reading is Fundamental and the NSPCC
• Arts: the Royal Opera House, the Tate Gallery, the Royal Ballet School and the Museum of London
• Sports: Capital Kids Cricket, SnowsportGB and the Tennis and Raquets Association.

British Land has sponsored creative projects by Create, a dynamic arts charity, since 2003. These have previously focused on the Camden area near our former Head Office. In 2007 we enabled the charity to run its first ever project for young carers in Westminster where our new Head Office is located. During the Autumn Create ran a two month creative writing and photography project called ‘Who am I’. Groups of 7 to 11 year old carers from Hallfield and St Vincent’s Junior Schools participated. This was funded by British Land and The Eleanor Rathbone Charitable Trust, with the support of Westminster Young Carers Service.

Over 100 children in Westminster take on adult responsibilities such as caring for a parent or sibling who has a physical illness, disability, mental illness or substance abuse problem. These young people are often vulnerable and at risk of social isolation, bullying and underachieving.

If I was an animal I would be
A meerkat
Because in the cage it looks sad
And sometimes I am sad
It is locked up in a cage
And sometimes I lock myself up
In my room
When I am not feeling well

Anisah, nine years old

This project gave 15 young carers the opportunity to explore the theme of caring through words and images. They spent a day at London Zoo mastering how to capture the animals’ interactions through a camera lens. Imagining themselves as these animals in the creative writing workshops helped the children to express something profound and personal to them.

Our on-site management teams have responsibility for sponsorship at our properties and developments around the UK. This enables a speedy response and entrusts decision-making to those who are most familiar with the needs of their local communities.

In 2007 Parkgate Shopping supported Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice, Rotherham United Football Club and Safe@last for children under 16 who have run away from home. In November over a hundred people participated in a sleep out at Parkgate, raising over £1,000 for Safe@Last. The sleepers were welcomed by charity patron Lord Scarborough, Emmerdale's Lucy Pargeter, the Mayor and other dignitaries. In 2007 shoppers donated 667 bags of clothes, jewellery, toys, music, books and other unwanted items, raising £5,500 for Bluebell Children’s Hospice. In December the Park Manager also participated in a fundraising ‘jailbreak’ for the Hospice. Following his ‘arrest’ he shared a cell with a local TV presenter and a world boxing champion for a day, while friends, family and colleagues raised £1,500 bail for his release.

In 2007/08 shoppers and staff at Eastgate Shopping Centre raised over £125,000 for local projects, covering health, education, arts and the environment. In one initiative a team cycled from London to Paris in three days, raising over £5,000 for Action Medical Research. They were supported by a team of 23 Eastgate staff, retailers and building contractors who cycled 600 miles on gym exercise bikes placed on a stage in the mall. As well as supporting a good cause this encouraged a sense of team working and generated positive publicity, with coverage in regional papers as well as Retail Week, Shopping Centre Magazine and Property Week. Other causes that benefit from Eastgate’s support in 2007 included Gateway FM, a community radio station for Basildon, St Luke’s Hospice, the Royal British Legion and Age Concern.

Our European team sponsors Spanish sport and music events, as well as cultural festivals. In 2007 these included a Rod Stewart concert, the Santa Isabel Music Festival at the University of Zaragoza, a children’s Christmas fair and a football match between Aragon and Ecuador. They also donated nearly €50,000 to good causes such as Atades, an association for mentally handicapped children and associations for consumer rights.

 

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