Volunteers plant thousands of daffodils to bring spring colour to future Cambridge Children’s Hospital site
A team of volunteers had a blooming marvellous day planting thousands of daffodil bulbs at the future Cambridge Children’s Hospital site.
The flowers will bring some much-needed spring colour to the 80-metre stretch of verge opposite the Rosie Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
The hospital will be the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England and it will be unique in fully integrating mental and physical healthcare under one roof, alongside world-leading research.
Head to Toe Charity, one of the project’s charitable partner organisations, provided the people power through their corporate volunteers. The team from Gateley Smithers Purslow, a multi-disciplinary surveying, engineering and architecture consultancy with an office base in Duxford, worked tirelessly to get as many bulbs as possible into the ground.
Cambridge Children’s Hospital deputy project director Chris McNicholas, and other members of the project team, also came down to get their hands dirty.
“One day Cambridge Children’s Hospital will stand proudly alongside many other incredible organisations already established on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. While it’s a little time until our hospital is built, we want to be good neighbours now. We hope, come Spring, the daffodils will brighten up people’s days,” said Chris.
Hannah Wysocki, who leads Head to Toe charity, added: “Getting thousands of bulbs in the ground is no mean feat, but our volunteers from Gateley Smithers Purslow gave it their all. We are so grateful to them for giving up their time to support us.”
Cambridge Children’s Hospital is a partnership between Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and the University of Cambridge, alongside Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust and Head to Toe Charity.
The hospital’s outline business case was signed off by the government in August this year. Work is under way on the detailed process to appoint a contractor, with construction expected to be complete in 2029.
