Accoya wood working in partnership with Places of Change garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Published by Homeless Link for Homeless Link in Housing and also in Central Government

Accoya® wood, the world’s leading high technology wood, will form part of the ‘Places of Change’ Garden at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show, an ambitious collaboration between national housing and regeneration delivery agency, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), the Eden Project, national membership charity for frontline homelessness agencies Homeless Link, and Communities and Local Government (CLG).

The garden is being developed by homeless people right across the country, with the project aiming to challenge stereotypes around homelessness. This partnership builds on the success of the silver medal award-winning Key Garden at Chelsea in 2009 which saw collaboration from 20 homeless agencies and 200 homeless service users involved at all stages of the Garden’s development. Participants involved consistently reported a huge confidence boost, new skills, and renewed hope for their future.

The ‘Places of Change’ garden is 3 times the size of the 2009 Key Garden. The raised bed planters, a bench, compost bins and decking in the Garden will be made of Accoya® wood, which combines outstanding durability and dimensional stability with the virtues of fast growing, sustainable wood. As a highly durable wood, Accoya® will last at least 50 years above ground and 25 years in contact with or below ground. Designed by the Eden Project’s award-winning garden designer, Paul Stone, in collaboration with Roderick James Architects LLP, BCHA, Look Ahead Housing and Care, SHYPP (Herefordshire Supported Housing for Young People), Stonham Home Group, NOAH Enterprise, Architecture sans Frontières-UK, Providence Row Housing Association and Crisis Skylight.

Tony, 44 years old, Carpenter at St Mungo’s WoodWorks workshop, London says: “If the St Mungo’s WoodWorks workshop closed down, I don’t know where I’d be. It’s turned my life around after I was homeless for 15 years. It’s interesting working with a different type of wood on this project and making things I don’t usually make like compost bins and planters, where I’m used to building furniture for hostels. Just knowing that the pieces I have constructed will be in one of the gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show makes me really proud and gives me such a buzz. I’ll be watching the telly every night of the show hoping to see my pieces!”

The Accoya® wood team has been working with homelessness charity St Mungo’s to construct the Accoya® wood items. The items are being crafted in WoodWorks, the St Mungo’s wood workshop in Westminster, where homeless people develop new skills that will enable them to move on to further training and qualifications to help turn their lives around long-term. The Accoya® wood items will be located in the themed zones of the garden: Zone A, The Food zone and Zone D, the Industrial zone.
Paul Stone, The Eden Project’s award-winning garden designer says: “The RHS is trying hard to make sure the Chelsea Flower Show is more sustainable and what we are doing in the Eden Project garden is true to this objective. We chose to use Accoya® as it is a sustainable, high performance wood that can be used in-ground as well as above ground. Not only is it is FSC certified but it is also durable, attractive and extremely versatile, meaning that we can use it across a wide variety of applications in our garden. The fact that it is non-toxic and recyclable adds to its credentials as the perfect wood for a sustainable garden.”
Paul Clegg, CEO of Accsys, the company behind Accoya® wood, comments: “We are delighted to be involved with creating such a spectacular show garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. The carpentry skills and knowledge required to construct the garden furniture and decking provide a great training opportunity to nurture talent and support employment prospects for all the individuals taking part. Accoya wood has many qualities but it is specifically its Class 1 durability that makes it suitable for use in landscaping and outdoor furniture.”

The Places of Change Garden will offer more opportunities for the visitor to explore and discover the stories and individual “places of change” of the people taking part. It will feature a number of designated zones such as crops and food; forestry and leisure; medicine and health; industry and manufacture; and conservation and the environment; all of which act as a metaphor for new skills and the journey embarked on by the individual to get there. The overall impression will be one of craft and enterprise and the importance of teamwork.

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For further information on Accoya® wood, to arrange an interview or high-resolution images please contact Sarah Allen at Fuel PR on 020 7498 8211 or sarah@fuelrefuel.com

Or contact the partnership press offices:
HCA: Helen Stoddart on 020 7881 1615
Eden Project: David Rowe on 01726 811901
Homeless Link: Gill Perkins on 020 7960 3025
CLG: Malinee Wanduragala on 030 3441 1158
St Mungo’s: pressoffice@mungos.org on 0208 762 5570

Notes to Editors:
Accsys Technologies PLC (www.accsysplc.com) is an environmental science and technology company whose primary focus is on the production of Accoya® wood and technology licensing via its 100% owned subsidiary, Titan Wood Limited, which has manufacturing operations in Arnhem, the Netherlands, a European office in London and an Americas office in Dallas, Texas. Accsys Technologies PLC is listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM market, and on Euronext Amsterdam by NYSE Euronext, under the symbols 'AXS'. Accsys' operations comprise three principal business units: (i) the Accoya® wood production facility; (ii) technology development, focused on a programme of continuous improvements to the process engineering and operating protocols for the acetylation of wood which are currently under development and the development of technology for the acetylation of wood elements; and (iii) the licensing of technology for the production of Accoya® wood and Tricoya® wood elements across the globe.

Accoya® wood (www.accoya.com) is produced using a patented process that effectively converts sustainably grown softwoods and non-durable hardwoods into what is best described as a "high technology wood". Distinguished by its durability, dimensional stability and, perhaps most importantly of all, its reliability (in terms of consistency of both supply and quality), Accoya® wood is particularly suited to exterior applications where performance and appearance are valued. Unlike most tropical and European hardwoods, its colour does not degrade when exposed to ultraviolet light. Moreover, the Accoya® wood production process does not compromise the wood's strength or machinability. The combination of UV resistance, dimensional stability, durability and retained strength means that Accoya® wood offers a wealth of new opportunities to architects, designers and specifiers.

ACCOYA®, TRICOYA® and the Trimarque Device are registered trademarks owned by Titan Wood Limited, part of Accsys Technologies PLC, and may not be used or reproduced without written permission.

About HCA
The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) is the single, national housing and regeneration agency for England. Our role is to create opportunity for people to live in high quality, sustainable places. We provide funding for affordable housing, bring land back into productive use and improve quality of life by raising standards for the physical and social environment. For more information visit www.homesandcommunities.co.uk

The Places of Change programme is an £80m capital improvement funding programme managed by the Homes and Communities Agency, which seeks to improve services for people who are homeless. It aims to identify, encourage, engage and release their potential to enable them to move on with their lives. It encourages service users to get involved in services that will help them turn their lives around.
The programme currently funds 80 projects nationwide with a wealth of innovation that includes social enterprise initiatives such as Crisis’s Skylight cafes in Newcastle and London; a butchery and farm shop at the Pilsdon community in Dorset, as well as a variety of training activities and embedded learning such as a recording studio at Endell Street in London; and a café/training kitchen and small theatre at Leicester YMCA.

About Communities and local Government (CLG)
The Government department with responsibility for tackling homelessness and ending rough sleeping, which is providing funding for Chelsea 2010. An important part of our work on tackling rough sleeping is to extend positive activities that motivate and empower people to take greater control of their lives and the Chelsea project is a fantastic example of just that. Its focus is helping those who have been on the streets to take part in something that builds their confidence and self-esteem, and will help them get their lives back on track. www.communities.gov.uk

About the Eden Project
• Eden Project Limited is owned by the Eden Trust, which is a fully registered UK Charity (No. 1093070).
• Eden is home to the two biggest greenhouses in the world – the Rainforest Biome and Mediterranean Biome.
• Since fully opening in July 2001, more than 10 million people have visited Eden and it has generated £800 million for the local economy.
• So far capital funding of £141.4 million to develop Eden has been raised from a combination of £55.5 million from the Millennium Commission Lottery Fund, £25 million from the South West Regional Development Agency, £26 from European funds, £1 million from local and regional government (outside the RDA) and £33.9 million in the form of loans, lease finance and Eden's own revenue generation.
• Immediate information may be obtained from the Eden Project's website.

About Homeless Link
Homeless Link is the national membership organisation for frontline homelessness agencies in England. Our mission is to be a catalyst that will help to bring an end to homelessness. Our two goals are:
• To raise standards in the services that support homeless people and tackle homelessness
• To influence the development of policy, strategy and investment at all levels of government.
Homeless Link’s member organisations provide services through: hostels, day centres, outreach and resettlement agencies, housing advice centres, youth projects, health projects, welfare rights groups, regional and sub-regional homelessness networks, refuges, drug and alcohol services and church groups.

About St Mungo’s
St Mungo's opens doors for homeless people. Mainly based in London and the South, we provide emergency accommodation, support towards recovery and help to prevent rough sleeping. We run over 100 projects and help thousands of people make life changes every year.
The charity runs a number of skills, education and training programmes. WoodWorks operates with the support of the City of Westminster, and creates large products such as beds for the charity’s hostels as well as smaller items sold through the charity’s online shop - www.mungos.org/shop.

Homeless volunteer gardeners from the St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots programme are also taking part in shaping this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden.

For more information, visit www.mungos.org