Unique arrangement with Londoneast-uk's latest tenant JGO helps generate funds for homeless charity Crisis

Team JGO, a social enterprise which operates as a group, is relocating its operation to Londoneast-uk Business and Technical Park in a unique arrangement which will benefit Crisis, the national charity for homeless people.

Last year Crisis signed an agreement with Londoneast-uk to take 15,000 square feet of space at the location in Dagenham to store dry goods for the charity’s ‘Crisis at Christmas’ programme. Crisis provides food, warmth, vital services and the first steps out of homelessness for thousands of homeless people.
As part of the agreement Londoneast-uk also donated a further 17,000 square feet of storage space to Crisis which the charity could either use itself or rent out, with proceeds from any rental fees channelled back into Crisis to help fund their sterling work.
Now JGO is taking up this space to create a specialist training facility for their various enterprises with the rental, anticipated to be in the region of £20,000, going to Crisis.
John Lewis, Managing Director of Londoneast-uk, says: “This is in my view a commercially clever initiative. I would have been paying rates on this empty space which is now being utilised and the Crisis charity is benefiting from the rent donation arrangement we have put in place.

“I feel we have created an innovative business model that other landlords or businesses with spare capacity could look at introducing. It’s a novel way where Londoneast-uk are helping a charity to raise funds from space that would otherwise be vacant. Our rates and electricity costs are covered in our model but the rest of the rent goes to Crisis. I really hope that other organisations follow Londoneast-uk’s lead and copy our model.”
Jon Hems, founder of JGO MEDIA, says: “Team JGO are delighted to be relocating to Londoneast-uk Business and Technical Park. We were attracted to the site because of the good value space available to expand our social enterprise and by the professional landlord services on offer. The fact that our rent will go towards helping the charity Crisis to generate income to help the homeless is a great bonus and we fully support the innovative deal that has led to this.
“We are really looking forward to becoming part of the expanding enterprise community at Londoneast-uk and contributing towards the massive regeneration of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham”.

Keith Felton, Director of Corporate Services for Crisis, says: “Crisis is grateful to Londoneast-uk for their generosity in donating storage space which is now generating much-needed funds for our work to end homelessness.”
Team JGO will be fully operational at Londoneast-uk in November and intend to use a large proportion of the space to create ‘The Core’, a specialist training facility for participants in their various programmes.
Mr Hems founded Team JGO in 1999 and was later joined by his associate Jan Bros. The pair originally worked together as council officers in Tower Hamlets coordinating various social enterprise projects. The social enterprise now employs a team of seven people across its portfolio providing training and support to ethnic minority groups, working with schools on learning programmes and developing a special programme for prisons aimed at offering help and advice to combat repeat offending.
Team JGO develop their own products and services often working independently or in partnership with key Government bodies such as the Home Office, The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Ministry of Justice.

About Londoneast-UK
Londoneast-uk Business and Technical Park is situated in Dagenham, east London, and is located in state-of-the-art scientific buildings and land which was once a major manufacturing plant of global pharmaceutical company Sanofi. Now under the ownership of SOG Group — owner and operator of the award-winning Heath Business and Technical Park in Cheshire —highly specialised research & development and manufacturing buildings, which would cost tens of millions of pounds to replicate in today’s market, have been rebranded under the banner of Londoneast-uk and are being transformed into a business and technical park to service London and the Home Counties. Londoneast-uk operates as a sister park to The Heath in Runcorn which is regarded as one of the UK’s leading independently-owned technology parks.

For more information, please see:
www.londoneast-uk.com

PAUL SMITH ASSOCIATES
29th October 2018