Who is TPHP?

The Pump House Project

We are The Pump House Project, a unique, independent Charity based in Faringdon Oxfordshire. We have been open for over 11 years with a simple mission, to find out what the community needs and do our best to provide it.

Who is TPHP?

The Pump House Project

Our purpose

We received the Queens Award for Voluntary Services in 2018 for excellence in voluntary services within the community, work closely with the Faringdon Rotary, Sovereign Housing, Faringdon Community College, the Vale of the White Horse and Faringdon United Charities to name a few.

Our sole purpose from our conception in 2013 has been to engage and help whomever needs us, wherever the need arises, within our rural market town. From an initial focus on young people, we have evolved working to bring back to the town both core services, following cuts in local budgets and more specialist services identified by our users. Our aim is to continue to provide these varied and essential services for the forseeable future, ensuring a community focus for Faringdon Town residents.

What our community faces

Over the years the unfortunate reality in all public sectors has been a reduction in council budgets and an increase in day to day living. The impact of this on our local area is tangible with a reduction in essential and affordable support services, activities and groups.

Located between two major points in Oxfordshire, Swindon Town, and Oxford City the population of our town has increased by over 40% in just 7 years. We now have an ever growing and diverse community.

Approx Annual Cost – Core Costings

Salary of 1 Full Time Staff – £33,000
Salary of 2 Part Time Staff – £18,000
Utilities – £5000
Licences, Audits, Training – £2500

Although a few of our activities are fully funded by small grants currently, the overall majority are funded through local donations and fundraising. The addition of any core funding would greatly assist us in delivering to our community a vast range of services in line with our Charity Constitution for a further 12months.

Counselling Service – COGS (Community Owned Guidance Service)

Since COGS started in August 2021, we have seen and supported over 350 clients. Our age range is 12-25 years to target certain age groups, those that have started secondary school, those that have finished school and moving on to college, those completing college going to university or starting employment and those finishing University.

COGS provides each young person with a minimum of 10 weekly counselling sessions. Grants enable us to hire two secure meeting rooms, pay the necessary insurance, DBS checks for counsellors and group supervision costs for our counsellors.

Our counsellors are either fully qualified or in the final stages of their qualification, have a Certificate to Practice and need to undertake 100 supervised practical hours to qualify.

The Hearth

‘The Hearth’ is an amalgamation of many core services that TPHP has identified as a need and brought into being.

Started during lockdown to aid those that were unable to safely get out and shop for essentials the Fridge and Cupboard have grown beyond all recognition since conception.

With the support of our wonderful supermarkets in town – Aldi and Tesco – we collect donations of both fresh and ambient groceries daily. These then support an average of 50 families per day.