Specsavers - Sponsors of the Service to Community Award. Click here for more information on Specsavers.

Specsavers was founded in 1984 by Doug and Mary Perkins, who started the business in their spare bedroom on a table-tennis table. They opened their first Specsavers, value-for-money, quality eyecare opticians in Guernsey and Bristol. They aimed to offer a wide range of stylish, fashionable glasses at affordable prices for everyone. They wanted the company to be seen as trustworthy an optician as a local independent but with the huge buying power of a national company that meant savings could be passed on to the customer.

The company has grown rapidly since, thriving with its joint venture partnership approach to eyecare. For the past eight years it has been voted Britain’s most-trusted brand of opticians by Reader’s Digest.

Specsavers is bringing its core offers to its rapidly expanding hearing service, which is now doing for hearing what the retailer has already achieved in optics – dramatically reducing prices and waiting times and making audiology services more accessible for everyone. Specsavers is already the largest retail dispenser of digital hearing aids in the UK and offers a hearing service from over 400 locations.

The company continues to expand. From just two staff working at that table-tennis table, there are now more than 500 based at Specsavers’ headquarters in Guernsey and around 26,000 worldwide. The company has more than 1390 stores across the Channel Islands, UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

The Stevenage store has been open since 1992 and is run by store directors Gail Maynard and Adam Lovatt. Adam says: ‘We are absolutely delighted to be sponsoring the carer award and will be fundraising to make as much of a difference as we can in the upcoming months.’

Website: www.specsavers.co.uk