Dolphin Lifts Comes to the Rescue at Stroud Congregational Church

Stroud Congregational Church is a church with a difference as it is situated on the first floor above a function room, making it less accessible than most churches in the country. For the past 30 years parishioners who were unable to climb the spiral stone staircase made use of a standard lift, until recently when it finally started to show its age and become very unreliable.

Church volunteer Kay Weaver explained: “The lift had served us very well, but as it became more temperamental we took the decision to stop using it, on grounds of health and safety. We knew it would need some money spent on it, but when we received quotes in excess of £25,000 we were extremely shocked.”

Stannah Siena Stairlift

The church had recently spent most of its fundraising money on revamping the ground floor hall, therefore Kay and the team knew they would have to find a cheaper option and started looking into the possibility of having a stairlift installed. Kay continued: “Several local companies came and had a look, but they were unable to help due to the style of the staircase. Luckily one of them recommended Dolphin Lifts Western and as soon as we met up with Director Tom Wakefield, we knew there was a solution – and at a fraction of the cost of repairing our original lift.”

The solution came in the form of a bespoke Stannah Siena stairlift, specifically designed to wrap around the church’s stone spiral staircase. Tom explained: “This was certainly one of our more unusual installations, but working in conjunction with Stannah, we quickly put together a stairlift solution which would meet the requirements of Kay and her fellow parishioners at Stroud Congregational Church.” Dolphin Lifts’ experienced engineers Simon Andrews and Mark White were able to install the lift without any major alterations, whilst ensuring there was plenty of space for other stair users to pass by.

Mobile Trampoline Hoist

On the first Sunday following the installation several people used the stairlift and everyone commented on how easy it was to operate and how safe and comfortable they felt whilst travelling up and down the spiral staircase. A final word from Kay on behalf of the church: “The stairlift is just fantastic. I would not be surprised if people who felt they did not need to use the original lift, will now choose to use the stairlift, because it is so quick and reliable. We are so grateful to Dolphin Lifts Western for finding such a cost-effective solution to our rather unusual access problem.”

With increasing advances in the design and development of independent living solutions, the installation of a stairlift takes very little time and the end result can often go virtually unnoticed. Raymond explains: “The stairlift was installed in less than half a day, if that. It took from mid morning to lunchtime and was a very neat and seamless installation. Even the subsequent maintenance visit was quick and painless as there was very little to do, and we have had no operational problems since its installation 18 months ago. We hardly notice it is there and we were extremely satisfied with the work that was carried out.”

To find out more about our huge range of stairlifts, please contact the Dolphin Lifts Group on 0800 980 0126.