MARTON COMMUNITY CENTRE

Background

The portacabin style building, which served as Cypress Road Community Centre, was almost 50 years old.  It served as the Community Centre since 1978.  It was a pre-fabricated building resting on a brick base.  The walls had an inner and outer skin of hardboard; the central cavity was filled with insulating material.  In 1990, a voluntary management committee took over the running of the centre, as the local authority decided that it was too expensive to maintain.  The building steadily deteriorated, and had more than served its natural life.  The Management Committee agreed that we needed to replace the building if the centre was to thrive and continue to benefit the community it had served for over twenty years.

It was decided to replace the old building with a similar building.  We recognised that since our original building was constructed in the early 1950’s there have been major advances in the materials used to build ’ready-to-assemble’ buildings.  Nowadays, multinational companies such as McDonalds, local authorities and many hospitals use this system for providing modern and up-to-date facilities.

The Management Committee worked with a Council Officer to identify options of replacing the old building with a purpose-built Community Centre.  We had four options:

1.       Do nothing

2.       Move into a church or other local centre.

3.       Build a traditional brick building, which would cost nearly £300,000.

4.       Build a ’ready-to-assemble’ building which would cost under       £200,000.

We agreed to go for the last option.  In late 2000, we started to fundraise, work with the Council and put in grant applications.  We were successful on all three fronts in raising money.  Middlesbrough Council has given a grant of £100,000, we have been successful in getting a National Lottery grant for £92,000 and the group has raised over £12,000.  So, we now had enough money to build our centre.