At one of our chamber meetings earlier this year we were told a heartbreaking story of the death of a Witham resident who suffered a heart attack in the centre of the town.

Although there are a number of defrib units in the town those involved did not know where they were so they tried in vane to resuscitate the gentleman but he sadly passed away.

We decided that as a chamber we wanted to make sure that, in the future, that there was a defrib unit available no matter what time of day.

As a chamber we could not do this alone so our Chair, put her Witham Town Team hat on and applied for funding.

After an anxious wait we are delighted to let you all know that the application was successful and we have been awarded Big Lottery Funding to install a unit in the Newland Centre which will have 24/7 access for anyone who needs it.

We would like to thank Witham Town Team and New River Retail who operate the Newland Centre for their support with this project; we couldn’t have done it without them.

We are extremely proud of our team and the great way we are working together.

Tina Townsend, our Chair said ‘installing this device will not bring the gentleman back but we have done this as a lasting legacy to him. We hope that having a defibrillator that is centrally located and easily accessible 24 hours a day may save lives in the future. We respect the family’s privacy but in our hearts we dedicate this to his memory

We will keep you up to date with the project so watch this space…..

The committee