A pioneering removals and storage business which has been relocating customers and safeguarding possessions across the country for nearly 30 years is also taking the name of the Daisy Appeal nationwide after signing up as a corporate supporter.

Appleyards of East Yorkshire, which also provides speedy solutions to householders and businesses hit by flood, fire and other major disruption, will promote the Appeal across its network of thousands of contacts.

Andy Dickerson, Managing Director of Appleyards, said:

We send out thousands and thousands of emails every week to clients and contacts across the UK and we are going to re-brand them to promote the Daisy Appeal.

We’re also working with the charity on some sponsorship and fundraising ideas which will enable them to make the most of the new relationships we are helping them to build.

Andy first became aware of the Daisy Appeal from a client who Appleyards moved to Cyprus and who had received treatment in the past from Professor Nick Stafford, a retired head and neck surgeon who has been Chair of the Daisy Appeal since it was founded. Andy remembered the charity when he bumped into Claire Levy, Fundraiser for the Daisy Appeal, at a meeting of Kingstown Bevan BNI.

Andy said:

We went to a few events and helped with the fundraising and when I met Claire I decided we should get involved again. We’re adding the Daisy Appeal logo and links to everything we send out to raise awareness and we’ll follow that with some sponsorship activities.

Appleyards was founded in Hull in 1995 and in 2000 moved to a site in Therm Road with the first purpose-built storage warehouse in the city. That provided the platform for the launch of Hull Self Storage – another first for the city – and further investment in 2007 led to the launch of Simply Shredding, which specialises in disposing of confidential documents and now has more than 100 franchises across the country.

Also in 2007, demand for storage services rocketed when the summer floods affected more than 10,000 properties in Hull.

Andy said:

We worked with thousands of properties when the floods hit Hull and at a time when a lot of people were cashing in on the misfortune of others we took a different approach and offered a discount on our storage facilities to give people a hand.

It was the same with the tidal surge in 2013, and now the insurance market is a big part of our business. We set up Insure Assist Limited to help people who have been hit by flooding or fire anywhere in the UK and need to put items that haven’t been affected into storage while they relocate. People are always pleased to see us.

Claire, who is pictured with Andy at the firm’s premises, said:

We get involved in a lot of business networking activities and it is great to see that effort result in a new relationship with an established and highly innovative local company.

The links which Andy and his team have forged across the UK are also important to us because a lot of our work is of national and even global significance and is supporting cutting edge medical research in the Hull and Humber region and much further afield.