Residents in Mapperley are celebrating after the council handed them the keys to Haywood Road Community Centre after they successfully fought to save it from closure.
Local residents will now take over responsibility for managing the centre from Gedling Borough Council after councillors approved the plans.
Cabinet members agreed to transfer the lease of the centre to the Haywood Road Community Association (HRCA) subject to legal approval.
Residents lobbied the council to save the centre from closure back in January 2017. Residents voiced concerns about a lack of alternative community centres and the desire to retain the neighbouring green space.
Since then, the council has invested £20,000 into improving the centre and, most recently, made a successful joint funding bid with the HRCA from FCC Communities Foundation for a new £140,000 play area that opened in September.
The centre has been transferred under the council’s ‘Community Asset Transfer Policy’, which gives organisations wishing to take on responsibility of their local community centres, opportunity to do so. They have to fulfil a number of stringent criteria before it can happen, which includes consultation with stakeholders, getting public liability insurances and providing the council with a robust business and financial plan to ensure they have the capacity to run the centre both physically and financially.
The HRCA is now a registered charity which means it can access certain funding unavailable to local authorities that could be used to improve the centre.
This is the second centre that has been transferred over to a local community organisation under the council’s Community Asset Transfer Policy. Arnold Hill Community Centre was transferred in 2017 and has become a success under the new name, Eagle’s Nest Community Centre.
A spokesman for HRCA said: “As Government funding is reduced more and more, Gedling Borough Council has had to look at ways to reduce spending on non-statutory services, which includes community centre. The asset transfer scheme allows proactive communities to take over and develop centres and it offers financial saving for the council on the upkeep of the centre.”
