NEWS

Question mark looms over Oakley Community Resource Centre

Oakley Community Centre struggles on as trustee’s pull funding with council offering little financial assistance, taking back their building in the process. The Community Centre as we know it will close, though for now the recourse centre will be business as usual.

However the future of the community centre isn’t certain.Project Manager Anna Reeves said “We aren’t staying open as we are a lack of sustainable ongoing funding. The two charities that help us are pulling back their funding.”

This move has resulted in redundancies, though the recourse centre for the meanwhile has some level of funding, with short term measures in place.

The building, already owned by the council, could soon be utilised for almost anything. The Oakley Regeneration Partnership and the Neighbourhood Project announced last month that they were closing the centre. These entities, combined with council aid, once made the Community centre what it is now. Though this has now been reduced to council funding and initiative.

Anna Reeves added: “The council are taking the building back and managing it themselves. There’s some indication that it will be re-used again as a community centre, but we can’t be sure.”

The building that’s been of great use since 1997,  seeing approximately 7,500 people a year. If closed this would be seen as a great loss to the community.

On October 28th, the future of the building and upcoming measures will be discussed. This will be done before the Lib Dem cabinet at a dedicated meeting.oakley-resource-centre

Image accredited to GloucestershireLive.co.uk

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