Phoenix rises: the power of community regeneration
A true regeneration professional should never shy away from a challenge, and the satisfaction of seeing a project get underway and a community benefiting from its own hard graft more than compensates for any frustrations and drawbacks. Recently we have been lucky to play a part in ensuring an apparently lost Wakefield community centre could re-open with its long-term future guaranteed.
The Phoenix Centre, home to a playgroup and range of other much needed community facilities, is a Victorian former school, in the care of the local authority. It was closed earlier this year on health and safety grounds, and if it hadn’t been for the kind offer of alternative accommodation made by the local pub, the playgroup would have had to close altogether. Luckily the council agreed to consider leasing the building to the local community on a long lease, if they could produce a convincing business case for it resuming its former role.
It was at that point that the community organisation which runs the centre, the Phoenix Alverthorpe Ltd, approached BlueFish Regeneration for advice on the business case, which we quickly turned around, and a 25-year lease was signed at the beginning of October.
Now, a matter of weeks after urgent repair work costing nearly £50,000 began, the playgroup is back where it belongs, and the centre is open for business again, offering a wide range of resources and facilities to the local community. We are now drawing up a costed delivery plan for a complete refurbishment of the building, ending a spell of considerable uncertainty about the centre’s future stretching back to 2007.
The revival of the Phoenix Centre is a prime example of what can be achieved by a community which simply refuses to give up in the face of overwhelming odds against success. They have had protracted discussions with the local authority, approached numerous funders, carried out exhaustive local consultation and overcome seemingly endless legal, financial and structural hurdles.
But this is just the start: the saga is set to continue well into 2010, with refurbishment of the main building and, hopefully in the longer term, a radical overhaul of the adjoining, derelict, headmaster’s house. We will be reporting regularly on progress and hope to feature in a forthcoming issue of New Start.
In the meantime, it is a real thrill to see the centre re-open, and children enjoying the new, bright space the building at last can offer. The tremendous support the Phoenix has received from local residents and contractors, consultants and other professionals, many who have worked at cost or for nothing, is an inspiration to all of us working in neighbourhood regeneration.
In these rather gloomy economic times, it is really encouraging to know that there are communities who can really pull together and make things happen. Long may they succeed.
Posted on Monday, 4th January 2010 | This entry has 0 comments
