CHESTER ShareShop is set to become the city's largest charity and coffee shop after agreeing terms to move into the vacant Dawsons music store on Pepper Street.

The grand opening of the new store will take place on Saturday, September 17 at 12pm, the charity announced via its Twitter page. ShareShop has said that cutting the ribbon will be a number of VIPs who the charity helped after they became homeless.

With four times the retail space of the charity's previous unit, the 5,000sq ft will allow ShareShop to include a cafe with a Parent & Baby Area and VIP Pram Parking. The charity have promised that the new space will have free internet access and plenty of free charging for laptops and mobiles. An 'InspireRoom' will also be available for companies to hire.

Founder and trustee Adam Dandy said: "We’re delighted to announce that we have provisionally agreed terms to rent the old Dawsons Music Showroom, which is a huge space, at a discounted rate with the kind support of the Grosvenor Estate, to whom we are extremely grateful, this will allow us to use even more penny’s in every single pound that our brilliant volunteers raise to help people who are homeless right here in the City of Chester as well as people who are refugees abroad."

The charity closed its store on Northgate Street last week in preparation for the move and the new premises will allow the organisation to continue its work on an even larger scale.

Mr Dandy continues: "When we set up SHARE we wanted to create a way for the public to be able to donate and see exactly how their money was being used to support people who are homeless and assist people who are refugees, the Suspended Coffees, the Buy a Brick Appeal, the Kindness Wall and now the the Share Hub, as well as recent convoys of aid to Refugees in Ukraine from Chester and North Wales and the amazing work that our teams of volunteers do in our ShareShop in Mold, by distributing aid to hundreds of resettled families, mothers and children placed into emergency care, and people struggling to keep a roof over the heads each month, all of these different parts of SHARE give public a way to really know and feel their donation or contribution has made a direct difference to someone else in their hour of need.

"The new ShareShop at the old Dawsons Music Store on Pepper St, next to Chester Amphitheatre, will continue to fund and support all of these different parts of the charity with your help and custom and we’d love you to join us or support us by coming in for a brew, a cake, some shopping, to volunteer or just to have a look around the next time you’re in Chester.

"We’d like all our supporters to be the first through the doors when we open, so we’d like to invite you all to our grand opening in September – Watch this space! In order to get our brand new ShareShop set up with minimum cost, we are in need of the following trades and supplies, please tag anyone who might be able to sponsor or donate these services: Joiner, electrician, vinyl flooring, shop front signage, soft play equipment, interior decorator."

Since Chester’s MP Chris Matheson opened it’s first shop on the 16th of January 2016 opposite Storyhouse, Chester’s ShareShop has played a key role in helping to shape provision and a voice for people who are homeless in the city, with some even working in the shop itself and later gaining jobs at local employers, including Chester Zoo.

On the move to the larger site, Mr Matheson said: "The ShareShop has established itself and we are seeing its ongoing usefulness, particularly during the Ukraine crisis.

"The new shop which will take over the former Dawsons premises and give the charity the chance to increase this even more."

ShareShop have said that the first 100 people to enter the new store on September 17 will receive a 25 percent discount voucher.