The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit Luton in Bedfordshire for a day of engagements on Wednesday 24th August 2016.
The day will begin with a visit to Luton's iconic Bute Mills, to see local organisations doing ground-breaking work with young people, with a focus on mental health and emotional wellbeing. The building re-opened in April 2016 as the new home for Luton-based national youth charity Youthscape, following a £3.2 million renovation. The space has been designed for Youthscape as a national hub for innovation in youth work, with areas for therapeutic and informal work with young people, and also room to train youth workers and professionals from across the UK. After their tour of the building, and introduction to Youthscape, The Duke and Duchess will meet CHUMS, a mental health and emotional wellbeing service for children and young people, where they will discuss how the organisation supports young people dealing with or affected by suicide. They will also meet the OM Group, Our Minds Matter (OMM), Luton Council of Faiths and Grassroots, who are working together to raise awareness and address stigma in the field of mental health among faith groups in the area.
Next, The Duke and Duchess will visit Keech Hospice Care, where they will meet families, friends and volunteers of the hospice which supports both children and adults. Keech Hospice Care's mission is to help children and adults to live pain and symptom free, to spend time with their family and friends, to understand what is happening to them, and to stay out of hospital. During their visit The Duke and Duchess will attend a reception and unveil a plaque to mark 25 years of the adult hospice.
The day will conclude with a visit to Hayward Tyler Luton, to present them with The Queen's Award for Enterprise (International Trade) and to open their newly built Centre of Excellence. The company has been operating from its current site since the early 1870s, and is the global centre of design and development for its key products, the Boiler Circulating Pump and wet-wound motors. Other achievements include producing the first submersible motor in the early 1900s, the largest sub-sea motors and providing units to all the Royal Naval submarine fleet. The newly built Centre of Excellence is the result of a £20m investment, the largest in the company’s history.
