Guisborough bakery invites people struggling to pay fuel bills to use warm room

The bakery sitting room will be open every week day where people can come and be warm

A bakery is inviting people struggling to keep out the cold to use a warm room above its kitchen for free.

Staff at Brickyard Bakery and Academy cookery school, in Westgate, Guisborough, are opening up a sitting room above the shop every week day where people can spend a few hours.

Owner Ed Hamilton-Trewhitt said heat from the bakery's huge oven was being wasted heating an empty room.

The warm room will open on 15 September from 10:00 to 17:00 each week day.

Chef and business owner Ed Hamilton-Trewhitt said the heat from the bakery oven was currently being wasted heating an empty room

He said: "We are a community bakery with a 6ft square oven and as you can imagine it generates a lot of heat that goes up into upstairs.

"Everyone is concerned about the current financial climate and a lot of my customers are elderly and on basic pensions and don't have very much cash.

"I was worried about them during the pandemic and I'm worried about them now. I've got all this extra heat which is just disappearing up through the floorboards.

"This is completely free, there's newspapers and magazines and tea and coffee.

"I don't want people sitting at home with a blanket on, please come along."