Construction work starts on Guide Dogs’ National Breeding Centre.

Building work has begun on Guide Dogs’ new National Breeding Centre in Bishops Tachbrook, Leamington Spa.

Contractors started work on Friday, February 26, on the state-of-the-art centre, which will be a flagship site for the charity, complete with visitor and educational facilities.

Guide Dogs will continue to operate from its current Tollgate House site, adjacent to the National Breeding Centre site, until all building work finishes in summer 2011.

Carol Warner, National Breeding Centre Operations Project Manager, said: “Guide Dogs has bred puppies at our site near Bishops Tachbrook since 1968.

“We are delighted with this new development which will significantly contribute towards our strategic aim to help more blind and partially-sighted people get about independently.

“The new facilities will be fantastic for dogs, staff, volunteers and visitors, so starting the building work is a very exciting landmark moment for us.”

Stephen Kirk, Guide Dogs Director of Operations, said: “As we provide people with a guide dog for life - and they could have eight dogs in their lifetime - we need to increase the 1,100 dogs a year we breed to around 1,550.

“The current facilities at Tollgate House are outdated and do not have enough capacity for expansion. The new centre will be world-class and allow us to meet our challenging new 2010 - 2020 Strategy aim to increase our guide dog partnerships substantially.”

West Midlands-based construction company Morgan Ashurst will be building the new centre.

Tony Fitzgerald, the company’s project manager, said: “We’re really excited to have started work on this landmark project for Guide Dogs.

“On all of our projects we are always keen to minimise our carbon footprint and here we will be incorporating a host of environmentally-friendly features into the building such as renewable energy sources including a biomass boiler and rainwater harvesting.”

For further media information, please contact Lorna Catling in Guide Dogs’ Communications Department on 0118 983 0114 or email Lorna.Catling@guidedogs.org.uk