Local volunteers 'abandoned' by the city council to hand back keys of community centre

A LONGSTANDING Bulwell community centre says it has been "abandoned" by Nottingham City Council and will hand its keys back in three months.

- By OLIVER PRIDMORE [e-mail]

The Bulwell Hall Community Centre, formerly known as the Bulwell Healthy Living Centre, was built in 2005 and those running it say they have made the decision to close "with great sadness".

The Post's Protect Nottingham Community Centres campaign was launched on January 13 to call for a radical change in the city council's approach. The authority has provided a subsidy of £600,000 a year to all its community centres combined and the council now wants to end these payments as it battles multi-million-pound budget gaps.

The authority previously said it wanted a "core offer" of community centres to remain and that it would be trying to move them off their current peppercorn rents and onto a market-level rent which could have led to bills for some going from £10 a year to £30,000. The council recently announced at a meeting called for by our campaign that it had moved away from market rents in a significant shift and instead wanted community centres to chip in a fixed fee of around £400 a year.

Despite this victory for the campaign, the Bulwell Hall team say that a lack of income and increased costs from the council mean that even the new approach will not sustain its future.

In a statement, those running the centre said: "This decision has been made with great sadness for the people of the Bulwell Hall Estate who will lose this facility that we have worked hard to keep open for their use and enjoyment since it was built in 2005.