We’ve officially let the cat… er, dog… out of the bag! On Sunday, the Times wrote an article about future building plans for our lovely Roden centre. These plans include a new greener approach, with solar panelling, rooflights that open to allow ventilation in the warmer months, low-power LED lighting with daytime sensors, and more. The aim is to cut the energy consumed by more than 60%! This isn’t the first time we’ve used environmentally conscious techniques, either. When the Dublin centre was built last year, it incorporated ground coil heating and rain water recycling. It’s something we think is very important for both the environment and efficient for driving down energy costs.The new building will most certainly provide better welfare facilities for the dogs as well as saving costs in the long term. The new improvements planned are an onsite veterinary operating suite and a training barn where we can work with dogs under cover and run training classes. We will also have better exercise compounds. Also, the high standard of internal finishes will save on maintenance costs in the long run in what is an environment that has hard usage!
It’s an exciting time for Roden and as Matthew Taylor, property director here at Dogs Trust, says: “The less we spend on energy, the more we have for our core function, which is
caring for dogs.”
We agree, Matt!
4 comments:
Great news and well deserved spruce up! Hope there is a lovely cosy staff room included in the plans as well as homely dog accomodation - the staff do a fantastic job!
So glad that Roden is getting a well deserved makeover. I visited in August 2008 and found my beautiful Daisymay. All the staff do a wonderful job and deserve a great centre to care for all the lovely pups. Looking forward to the open day in July. We wouldn't miss it.
What a terrible waste of money!! I read the new facility will be able to house 30 less dogs than the current kennels. Neighbouring rescues like Grinshill, Hillbrae & GRSB will have to mop up the surplus. How about sharing a bit of the wealth and helping out some other kennels.
Hi Alex,
There will be fewer kennels at the new facility. However, past experience of rebuilding large centres has shown that reducing the numbers of kennels can lead to more dogs being rehomed. For instance, our Kenilworth Centre was rebuilt a few years ago with the result that rehoming numbers went up dramatically – despite having many fewer kennels. The reason appears to be that if there are too many dogs on display, potential adopters are overwhelmed. Reducing numbers also means that each dog can have more individual attention. Getting a dog into a loving home quickly, is more important for rehoming numbers than having a lot of dogs on site.
Obviously, if there are too few kennels then that can have a negative impact on rehoming. It is a difficult judgement call but we believe we are building the optimum number of kennels at Roden.
Thanks for your comment.
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