Great Park Community Centre Tables Successful Banks Group Furniture Grant Request
A busy Newcastle community centre has tabled a successful funding request to a regional employer to help it bring in much-needed new furniture.
The Great Park Community Centre welcomes over 5,000 visitors every month for a wide variety of events and activities, including playgroups, after school clubs, Great Park Football Club’s junior and senior teams, fitness sessions and meetings of the local Guides and Brownie packs.
It’s the only facility of its type within the Newcastle Great Park and has seen the tables in its main room gradually beginning to show their age through the amount of regular use that they have had since it first opened 11 years ago.
The Great Park Community Centre Association, which looks after the Roseden Way venue, had been looking for ways to replace its stock of tables, but having just invested in a new boiler system continuing to improve many other areas of required building maintenance, it didn’t have the allocated funds to purchase new furniture to improve its setting further.
But now, thanks to a £2,000 grant from the Banks Group, it has been able to bring in in eight new tables which will enable all the groups to keep carrying out their usual range of activities, as well as a portable storage unit that can be used to easily move materials and equipment around the centre.
Mark Graham, manager at the Great Park Community Centre, says: “Our existing tables have served us very well over the last 11 years, but with so many different groups making so much regular use of them, it was inevitable that they were going to start coming to the end of their natural lifespans sooner rather than later.
“Having reached this point, it had meant that some of our groups didn’t have all the facilities they needed to carry out their different activities, with the Brownies and Guides being particularly impacted, and we knew that we had to get some new furniture in for them as soon as we could.
“With lots of different projects on the go and increasing running and refurbishment costs to cover, we were struggling to be able to afford to make this purchase within our budget, so the support we’ve had from the Banks Group has been a massive help.
“The new tables are now in place and it’s making a real difference to what we can offer all our guests, as well as the fun they get from undertaking their different activities.”
The Banks Group is the business behind the nearby Kingston Village development, which will see around 900 new family homes being built on a 49-hectare site to the west of Brunton Lane, while it is also seeking planning permission for a further 74-home development at West Brunton, within the boundaries of the Newcastle Great Park.
Jamilah Hassan, community relations manager at the Banks Group, adds: “Growing communities need venues like the Great Park Community Centre as a place to come together and share time doing the things they enjoy.
“The community centre’s popularity is clear to see and we’re glad to be helping to ensure it can keep providing the facilities that its many users need to make the most of their time there.”
The Banks Group’s community funds are independently managed by Point North (formerly the County Durham Community Foundation).
Anyone from a community close to a Banks Group project who is interested in applying for funding from the Banks Community Fund should contact the company via its website enquiry form (www.banksgroup.co.uk/contact-us/) to find out if their group or project is eligible.