Free Christmas toy exchange looking for new home

A group is looking for a new venue to host its free toy exchange in time for Christmas.

The Darlington Toy Exchange was started by Macauley Macdonald and his partner last year with hundreds of items donated and taken from their stall in the town's covered market.

Darlington Market, which gave the group the space for free, ended its arrangement earlier this month, saying it could no longer accommodate the enhanced security needed for the unmanned stall.

Macdonald said they were making their "last cry for help" and if a new venue was not found in the next couple of weeks, they would have to cancel this year's Christmas toy exchange.

Macdonald said: "We saved thousands of pounds worth of toys from going to waste last year.

"And it's all due to the community, we hardly did anything, all we did was go down every day or so, make sure the toys were acceptable and just put them on display and everyone else did all the hard work," he said.

"It just makes a lot of sense for little kids to just get it for free, because they don't get a lot for free, do they?"

Macdonald said they would be "forever grateful" to the market but having to find somewhere new was "a little bit of a let-down".

The market said the space used by the exchange would be refurbished ahead of a commercial lettings campaign which would "support the continued use of this building".

The group were looking for a dry space to store donated toys, plus a space in the town centre for the exchange.

"I want it to be a magical little shop where kids can come in and get toys and it doesn't feel like a charity case, it needs to feel like a proper shop," Macdonald said.

He said he approached some shopping complexes but was told they would have to pay taxes.

"It's not about money, it's just a toy exchange, it's as simple as that, so for us to be able to pay £1,000 for business rates for a month, it's just not possible," Macdonald said.

Darlington Council said a venture such as theirs may qualify for tax relief.

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