A new community centre planned for a rundown Shrewsbury estate will be a ‘feather in the cap of the borough’ and help the fight against crime.
Nine years ago Meole Brace Community Centre, in Mary Webb Road, was gutted by arsonists and eventually razed to the ground.
It had been empty for some time, and now moves are afoot to provide the community with a permanent replacement.
Next month Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council will be asked to approve the inclusion of a new community centre for Meole Estate in its programme of larger capital schemes for 2008/09.
The scheme was approved by cabinet as an additional item put forward at its meeting on November 12 by Councillor Mike Owen.
Shropshire County Council is to be consulted over match funding and the potential for joint working towards its delivery.
Mr Owen said: “I raised the subject under the heading of SABC budgets. The result was that SABC will highlight the possibility of the new community centre for the Meole Estate area in its projected budget.”
He added that the new centre was unlikely to be open before the new unitary authority is formed in April 2009, but as a member of the implementation executive for the new council he will continue to push for it.
He has now asked Gavin McKenzie, chairman of Meole Estate Community Action, to put together a rough budget and identify a possible site.
Mr Owen and his wife Kath, who is also a borough councillor for Meole Brace, have been working on the scheme for the past year as a result of the area’s PACT (Partners and Communities Together) meetings.
In a letter to Mr Owen, Mr McKenzie said it was felt that, with the support of the local council and other partners, ‘the identified needs of this regenerating community can be an outstanding showpiece of addressing the needs of pockets of extreme deprivation within a more prosperous area’.
“It would be a feather in the cap of the borough when it is opened,” he said.
Story by Liz Gray