Warm Spaces - keeping St Helens warm this winter
Warm Spaces are somewhere you can go to get warm, stay warm and enjoy a little company. In some you'll also be able to get refreshments.
We know that many households and families will be struggling to pay their fuel bills this winter and may also be experiencing food poverty and social isolation. Our estimates show that 42% of households in the borough are likely to be impacted by fuel poverty.
St Helens wants to do more for its residents this winter to ensure they are warm and to ease some of the unprecedented pressures on people at this time of year due to rising costs.
To ensure that residents have access to somewhere warm and comfortable, residents of all ages across the borough will be welcome to come into our libraries and leisure centres, to stay warm, as part of the St Helens Together Warm Spaces initiative.
We are also working with our voluntary and community sector partners to explore opportunities to expand the number of Warm Spaces available to residents in the borough and offer support to people using them.
Our Warm Spaces directory shows where known Warm Spaces are available to residents in the borough. It also includes information on facilities and access.
If you are hosting a Warm Space and it isn't listed, please fill in our online form. You will need to create an account on our website to be able to submit a Warm Space entry. Once complete, a member of our team will get in touch to confirm these details. Your space will then be listed publicly on our directory.
We are asking those who are hosting Warm Spaces to sign up to our Warm Spaces Charter below. You can do this when registering your Warm Space through our online form.
Warm Spaces Charter
- You'll get a warm welcome as well as warm space. Every time you come to a Warm Space you'll be given a warm welcome from the staff and volunteers there.
- Everyone is treated equally, with dignity and respect. Everyone has a right to be warm, so everyone in a Warm Space treats people, and is treated by people, with dignity and respect.
- Your Warm Space will be a safe space. Your Warm Space will stick to the safeguarding policies that it always uses, and it will stick to food hygiene rules too.
- We will not tell anyone about you needing a Warm Space. If you want to share the reasons you need a Warm Space, someone will listen, but they won't tell anyone else unless you give them permission, or they must because of their safeguarding policies.
- It doesn't matter why you need a Warm Space. Every Warm Space is a non-judgemental space, whatever the reason you have for needing to come in.