THE Chair of the Wheatley Foundation has praised an upcycling furniture service for helping tenants in need.

Professor Paddy Gray OBE has applauded Home Comforts for their work providing free furniture and white goods to Wheatley Group tenants in Glasgow and the surrounding area who are in need of extra support. 

The service takes donated pieces of unwanted furniture, such as sofas and beds, and upcycled them before being giving them to tenants. 

The service is funded by the Wheatley Foundation which is the charitable art of the Wheatley Group, Scotland's leading housing, care and property-management organisation. 

Professor Gray visited the Home Comforts depot in Skypark in Glasgow to meet staff.

He said: "It was a privilege to visit the fantastic Home Comforts service.

"The quality of the furniture, the speed in which it is turned around and delivered to tenants – as well as the commitment and dedication of staff – is really impressive.

"As the cost of living continues to rise, there’s a real need for this support among our customers and it’s important we continue to do as much as we can to help."

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Since it launched three years ago, Home Comforts has given out more than 6600 pieces of furniture and white goods to almost 1800 homes in and around Glasgow. 

That equals around 280 tonnes of furniture that would otherwise have been dumped or gone to landfill.

In the past year, 25% of those who received items were previously homeless. 

Home Comforts is currently available to customers of GHA and Loretto Housing in the west of Scotland and the Foundation is working with furniture re-use charities to extend the service to Edinburgh and Dumfries.

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Lynne Mitchell, foundation manager, said: "Home Comforts is a real lifeline to customers struggling to furnish their home.

"We were delighted to welcome Professor Gray to the depot – and it’s great to hear how impressed he was.

"There’s such an increase in demand for the service we hope to support 1000 households over the next year.

"We look forward to rolling out this lifeline services to Edinburgh and Dumfries later in the year with our local delivery partners."