PEOPLE of Frome have come together to raise money for a local butchers after it was involved in a suspected arson attack on a car parked outside its premises, earlier this month.
Local butchers shop in Badcox H.E Williams and sons, which is owned by Nigel Williams who was the Frome Times’ Person of the Year in 2012, was victim to a fire in the early hours of Friday 14th February. What started as a car fire outside the shop spread to the shop front, leaving the business unable to open.
The car fire that started the blaze is being treated as suspicious by the police, which is said to follow a current arson trend in the town.
However the people of Frome, who say the butchers is one of their favourite shops in the town, have rallied together to raise money for the family in order to help get the business up and running again quickly.
Frome resident, Adam Baylis, set up a Justgiving page with the initial target of raising £1,000. To Adam’s amazement, this target was met within a number of hours and therefore has been raised to £10,000.
The current total sits at £4,770 with over 200 supporters.
Adam told Frome Times, “The sad background of arson on cars has sadly escalated in the area. My mum’s car got set alight one year when she was visiting for Christmas. It seemed to go quiet for a while, from spring last year as far as I am aware, but then we had a car fire in the last three weeks, which caused a fire to a nearby fence and now this car fire damaging a business. It’s almost like you can see a progression in the arsons. It’s quite worrying.
“The reason I decided to set up the fundraiser was because the butchers is a key part to the community, everyone shops in there and the staff are pleasant, great with kids and offer a laugh and a smile.
“There is a huge step between losing a car and losing your business, there are people’s incomes and livelihoods and loss of stock and earnings. We thought the community would want to step in and help the family out with that.
“There has been such amazing support, the messages on the page have been so lovely and you can see the value of having this kind of shop in the community and people want to do what they can to help.”
The police are treating the fire as suspicious and are asking for anyone with any information to give them a call.
They said, “Did you see anything suspicious? Or have you heard anything about how this may have started? Please call the police on 101, quoting reference: 5220036700”
If you would like to donate to the Justgiving page, raising money to get H.E Williams back on its feet then visit https://www.just giving.com/crowdfunding/ love-burns-arson.
