See inside the refuge your donations are building...

Domestic abuse campaign has raised £500,000 so far

- ANDY GREGORY

The team building The Independent and Refuge's first new home for domestic abuse survivors has taken readers behind the scenes to look at how the sanctuary is being built.

Thanks to readers’ generous donations to our Brick by Brick campaign, now in excess of £500,000, construction is well underway on a house for people fleeing the horror of domestic abuse.

Plans to build a second safe home are now also in motion after our campaign – backed by an array of high-profile supporters including the Queen, Sir Keir Starmer and Dame Helen Mirren – far surpassed its initial £300,000 target.

Speaking as the first new home starts to take shape, group director of house builders Persimmon Anthony Vigor said the company was “really pleased and proud” to be constructing the refuge for the cause.

“We recognise the importance of home to people, and building homes in communities, and so given the need for homes like the one that we’re building here as part of Brick by Brick, we thought that this feels like exactly the type of brilliant initiative that we should support as well,” he said.