Charity opens shop in West Bromwich

Community Transport, which resells donated goods, provides accessible transport for the local community and provides internal and external driver training, opened a shop in The Sandwell Centre, West Bromwich on Monday.

The charity has traditionally sold furniture out of large warehouses, so this is a new venture in Sandwell.

Community Transport was founded in 1964 in Birmingham, with the purpose of helping move people into homes and helping out with transport.

Bryan Scrivener, along with his wife Dorothy, began collecting unwanted furniture for charitable causes. Word got around the Birmingham community, and he began to help families in need by transporting and supplying used furniture to them.

Bryan began attracting volunteers to his cause, and they began to get packs together to house the homeless. The organisation was first branded “Charity Transport” or CT, which was soon changed to Community Transport.

The charity, which was officially registered in March 1966, now operates three divisions – CT Furniture, reselling donated goods, CT Passenger, providing accessible transport for the local community and CT Training providing internal and external driver training.

Vulnerable

The charity is located in both the North East and the West Midlands, covering Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Staffordshire, Coventry, Birmingham and the surrounding areas.

Liz Sutton, operations director south for Community Transport, said: “I have worked at CT for 12 years, and I am so proud of what we do.

"We have a team of dedicated, hardworking staff and volunteers to reach out to the most vulnerable members in our community.

"Our furniture sales supports our charitable aims of reducing isolation and promoting social inclusion with our Passenger Transport work.

"We are all very excited about the new West Bromwich retail outlet, and we can’t wait to welcome our customers back.”