Crystal Peaks community projects win major retail industry award
Crystal Peaks shopping centre has received a major industry award for its work in encouraging diversity and inclusion.
The SCEPTRE Awards 2024 - recognising the best practice and people in the shopping centre industry - saw the Crystal Peaks team receive the Diversity and Inclusion Scheme of the Year prize for its wide range of community initiatives.
These included a project to provide young people from Bents Green Community Special School with valuable work experience.
The centre has also introduced a free service to assist women who find themselves in need of period products when visiting the mall, which has also designated a Breast Feeding friendly destination.
Regular Sensory Sundays have been designed to support people living with Autism or who are dealing with complex health issues such as anxiety, stress or other additional needs, meaning they can find the hustle and bustle of shopping centres and their stores extremely daunting.
Linked to that, an area of the Crystal Peaks Retail Park has been used to create a sensory garden, designed to stimulate all five senses and provide an area for rest and relaxation, allowing visitors to connect with their surroundings and with nature.
Crystal Peaks has also been designated a Sheffield Safe Place, offering help and a temporary refuge to vulnerable people.
The centre is a member of the Sheffield Dementia Action Alliance, operating with the co-ordination of Sheffield Age UK to bring together key partners from across the city to provide understanding and awareness to help better support people living with dementia.
Special training has been given to staff, including a sighted guiding course, enabling them to serve, assist and speak to blind or partially sighted customers effectively and efficiently.
And when the team identified that there were no disabled toilet facilities within a 20 minute drive-time of the centre, they received a £60,000 grant from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in association with Muscular Dystrophy UK and, with support from Sheffield City Council, opened new Changing Places toilet facilities opened earlier this year.
Judges praised the Crystal Peaks team’s hard work, dedication and outstanding achievements which, they felt, truly set them apart.
Centre Manager Lee Greenwood commented: “Crystal Peaks always takes pride in placing the needs of its visitors at the heart of everything it does.
“All these projects were undertaken to ensure that every visit to Crystal Peaks is a safe, happy and rewarding experience for all our visitors.
“The feedback we have received from the public shows that these projects are having a positive impact and this award reflects the hard work everybody put into making Crystal Peaks such a popular destination.”
The awards ceremony, this year held at the Royal Lancaster London hotel, is the pre-eminent accolade in the shopping centre industry, putting the spotlight on management teams, retailers and suppliers that demonstrate real excellence.