New Bury Community Centre is officially opened

A community’s ambition for a bigger, brighter and better new community centre has finally been fulfilled with an official opening.

The New Bury Community Centre on the Howard Estate in Bury St Edmunds was opened by local residents Ernie Broom, Barbara Bannister and Val Cownley, yesterday, Saturday, February 12.

All three were former trustees of the New Bury Community Association (NBCA) that led on the project to replace the former 1960s centre in St Olaves Road with a building more suited and shaped to community needs.

“I was involved in setting up the original community centre in the 1960s and I know how important community centres are. I know many people had fond memories of the old community centre – of birthday parties and wedding receptions and more. This new centre is a place where many more memories will be made. It is my hope that it will quickly establish itself as the heart of the community and I’m chuffed to bits to have the honour, alongside Barbara and Val, in opening this new community centre,” said Mr Broom.

The past few weeks has seen some of the bookings from the old centre including Upbeat Heart Support, Bury St Edmunds Presbyterian Church and the over 60s club testing the new centre to check everything was working as it should be.

The official opening saw those organisations and other groups who are using the new centre, showcase what they do. The new building also houses the Carousel Family Hub and an NHS clinic room.

Yvonne Galloway, chair of the new NBCA trustees, said: “We are delighted to finally be able to welcome everyone to their new centre. Although we have taken on ownership of the building from West Suffolk Council, the building really belongs to the community – and it isn’t just for the Howard estate but also for the wider Bury St Edmunds community, including our new neighbours at Marham Park.”

The ambitious project has been nearly 10 years in the making.

St Edmundsbury Borough Council (now West Suffolk Council) owned the old centre which was run by trustees. It wanted to hand over ownership of the building to the community – but the old building wasn’t in the best state of repair. Suffolk County Council also wanted to find a new use for the former Howard Primary School site, where the new centre has been built.

So the councils set to work with members of the New Bury Community Centre, the Howard Estate Association of Residents and Tenants, and Gordon Macintyre from the Bury Presbyterian Church – to look at not only how it could achieve a new centre, but what it would be used for and how it would function.

As well as the two councils, the project has been supported by Bury St Edmunds Town Council which gave grant funding and Havebury Housing Partnership which contributed to some of the early project costs.

The sale of the former community centre, children’s centre and primary school sites for housing to Keepmoat Homes, as well as developer money from Marham Park, has paid for the new centre.

The project development build costs have also been backed by money from the Government’s Land Release Fund via the One Public Estate Programme. The new community centre was built by Ashe Group.

For more on the New Bury Community Centre visit the Facebook group  www.facebook.com/groups/thenewburycommunitycentre its website at https://sites.google.com/view/thenewburycommunitycentre/home