Doncaster Selected for Baton of Hope Tour

Doncaster has been selected to host the Baton of Hope Tour27, with Charlotte Lister, CSR and Partnerships Manager at the Crown Bawtry Collection, appointed Project Lead to bring together the city and lead the delivery of its Tour27 programme.

Charlotte works across the Crown Bawtry Collection’s three Doncaster venues – Crown Hotel Bawtry, Bawtry Hall and Rossington Hall – where her role centres on building relationships between businesses, charities and communities across the region.

She will now use that experience to lead a cross-city committee bringing together representatives from business, sport, tourism, public health, local government, Parliament and the Armed Forces community.

Doncaster was selected following significant national interest in Tour27, with more than 60 towns, cities and regions applying for just 20 places on what will be the third nationwide Baton of Hope tour.

For Charlotte and the team behind Doncaster’s successful application, however, securing a place on the tour is about far more than bringing a national event to the city. It is an opportunity to put suicide prevention at the centre of a city-wide conversation – and the local figures demonstrate why that conversation matters.

Doncaster public-health reporting recorded 37 deaths suspected to be suicide in 2023 – 32 males and five females.

Separate OHID data cited in a 2025 Team Doncaster report showed that Doncaster had the sixth-highest female suicide rate in England during 2021–23, at 8.8 deaths per 100,000, compared with 5.4 nationally.

The picture across the wider region is equally concerning. In 2024, 6,190 suicides were registered in England and Wales, while Yorkshire and the Humber experienced the largest regional increase in the registered suicide rate between 2023 and 2024, rising from 12.2 to 13.7 deaths per 100,000.

Behind every statistic is a person – and around every person are families, friends, colleagues and communities whose lives can be changed forever.

It is this human impact that sits at the heart of the Baton of Hope.

The movement was created following unimaginable personal loss. Fathers Mike McCarthy and Steve Phillip connected in 2022 after both losing sons to suicide and turned their shared grief into a determination to create change.

The first Baton of Hope tour travelled through 12 UK locations in 2023, taking conversations about suicide prevention out into communities and encouraging people to speak more openly about a subject too often surrounded by silence and stigma.

The movement grew further in 2025, when the Baton travelled to 20 locations over 40 days, culminating in London and receiving royal endorsement from HRH The Prince of Wales.

Tour27 will continue that legacy, taking the Baton into another 20 communities and using its journey as a visible symbol of hope – encouraging conversations, improving awareness and reinforcing the message that suicide prevention is not the responsibility of one organisation or one sector.

In Doncaster, that collaborative approach is already taking shape.

Charlotte will lead a committee comprising Jade Dyer of Doncaster Chamber; Laura Hemstock and Shaun Lockwood of DRFC Commercial; Lorna Reeve of Visit Doncaster; Ross Jarvie of Visit Bawtry; Lee Pitcher MP; Sarah Smith of Doncaster Council Public Health; and Teresa Hodgson, Armed Forces Lead at Doncaster Council.

Together, the team will now begin developing a route and programme designed to reflect Doncaster and its communities, involving local organisations, businesses, charities, people with lived experience and those already working to support mental health and suicide prevention across the city.

Detailed route locations, Baton Bearer opportunities and ways for businesses, organisations and residents to become involved will be announced as planning progresses.

Charlotte said:

“This is so much bigger than bringing an event to Doncaster. Every statistic represents a person, and around that person is a family, a friendship group, a workplace and a community.

“We want the Baton to help create conversations that can sometimes feel difficult to start, to challenge the stigma that still surrounds suicide and, most importantly, to help people know that support and hope are there.”

She added:

“Doncaster has an extraordinary ability to come together, and that was at the heart of our application from the very beginning.

“Our committee already brings completely different parts of the city around one table – business, sport, tourism, public health, local government, Parliament and our Armed Forces community – and that is exactly what suicide prevention requires.

“Tour27 gives us an incredible opportunity to unite Doncaster around one shared message of hope. I don’t want our success to be measured simply by what happens on the day the Baton comes through the city. I want us to build something that starts conversations, strengthens connections and leaves a legacy long after the Baton has moved on.”