Thursday, January 11, 2007

Riverside Youth Centre Refurbishment


£130,000 has been ploughed into improvements at the Riverside Community Centre on the London Road.

The centre which is based behind the Porter Butt next to the river Avon, was a couple of years ago under threat of being closed down after an unfortunately unsuccessful bid to turn it into a Healthy Living Centre.

However this did not stop Councillor David Dixon (left in picture) and local residents enthusiam for keeping this centre alive. The Riverside Community Association was set up under the Chairmanship of Cllr Dixon with an aim to keep the valuable facility at Riverside.

Last year Local Councillor Colin Darracott (centre in picture) agreed £130k worth of works to take place at the centre to bring it up to standard for the Disability Discrimination Act.

Last week 12 weeks of work started at the centre which will see significant improvements and a much better facility for users.

Cllr Darracott said of the scheme, "I am really pleased that the Council has been able to allocate these funds to the centre, last year we saw Council investment into a state of the art music studio in one part of the centre and with this extra £130,000 I think the local community will be really pleased with these developments."

Andy Tanner (centre in picture) a local campaigner and landlord of the Porter Butt is also pleased to see improvements at the centre and is working with the Council to help improve the access road, which we hope to see resurfaced once the works at the Centre are completed.