Campaigners fighting to save youth centre launch bid to run it themselves
Mark Norridge runs The Farm Youth Club, Rickyard Road. The County Council are currently in the process of consulting to shut down the building.
CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save a community youth facility in Northampton have launched a bid to take over the running of the complex themselves.
Northamptonshire County Council has been consulting over plans to close a collection of buildings in Rickyard Road, The Arbours, which is known locally as ‘The Farm’, in order to save money. A decision was due to be taken by its cabinet in December, but that has since been deferred.
Now a group from the community, led by Mark Norridge – pastor of the Community Church Northampton which runs a youth club on site – has launched a bid to see the facility pass into the control of local people.
Mr Norridge said: “We are pursuing every way we can to keep this asset and make it useful for the community.
“We are saying the services currently running out of it will close or move out of the area if the building isn’t kept available to them, but equally we see that it is too big a facility to use solely for those services.
“Our proposal is a package that includes what is already happening, and adds more to that.”
Mr Norridge said the group’s proposal included plans for a nursery and a community cafe or social space on site, as well as opening the site up for use by community services in neighbouring areas like Eastfield, Lumbertubs and Thorplands.
He said the group was now developing its 30-page proposal to prove its financial viability, and hoped to have it presented at a cabinet meeting in April.
He said: “We feel our proposal has the real possibility to be an exciting project that could create a hub for all sorts of activities, and we feel there are aspects of it that could be very beneficial to the council.
“We don’t believe the council would get anywhere near market value for The Farm if they were to sell it right now, so they might as well let us manage it and provide some real social benefit.”
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There are 3 comments to this article
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Tony Clarke
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 03:12 PMMark, we run something very similar at the Springs Family Centre (Kingdom Life) in Spring Boroughs, I am sure Clive who runs the centre would be happy to share experiences, I also work with another charity called Community Court Yard, which does outreach and music workshops. If I can help by acting as a conduit please email me tony.clarke@email.com as for NCC they are a complete joke, all the youth money went to Service Six who were invisible in Castle Ward, its about time local groups like yours got the opportunity to show what can be done!
nodga
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 12:24 PMthanks for your support Jim. I am hoping that one day I'll get a picture of me actually smiling in the paper!!
jimorourke
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 12:13 PMI wish the church group all the very best with their bid to take over The Farm. There is a huge need for this community space for the use of surrounding areas and the youth club is a great asset. Best wishes, Jim from Thorplands Club 81 FC
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