£500,000 centre is a goer

From the archive, first published Monday 26th Sep 2005.

TENBURY High School is set to become a focus of community activities with plans for a new £500,000+ centre finally to become a reality.

Tenbury Community Education Partnership, with the school and the county council, has now raised enough cash to proceed with the construction, equipping and staffing of community facilities.

The building, as yet un-named, will serve as a base for advisory, training and voluntary organisations as a drop-in and resource centre.

Work should start in January and be completed by the following September.

Last week the final piece of the financial jigsaw fell into place with the announcement of a £124,000 European regeneration grant that would be match-funded by Worcestershire County Council.

Partnership treasurer, Jackie Powell is delighted that the project can finally go ahead.

"This will be a multi-agency purpose built facility," she said.

"It will have a learning resource facility, available to the public, and a large community room that could be used for seminars, as a creche, a meeting room, a venue for amateur dramatics groups - anything really.

"It's wonderful after all this hard work - the partnership is made up of volunteers to see that this is really going to happen."

Barbara Seeley, school librarian and partnership member was equally enthusiastic.

"We are getting a new library as part of this - for use by students and the community," she said.

"It is really exciting for the school and the community.

"This is good for the pupils by getting the parents into the school and enhance the social education of the pupils."

Caroline Palethorpe, partnership chairwoman said architects were now drawing up plans for the project.

"The public will be able to utilise the building out of hours and it will be for the whole community," she emphasised.

"We are working with Jobcentre Plus, Aspire, the Worcester Bus Link, Ludlow College and many others to develop the facility."

Plans are also afoot to develop a minibus service to link with the new centre and bring passengers from the more remote rural areas of north Worcestershire.

Malvern Hills district councillor George Price also welcomed news of the finalisation of the project.

"This is a unique opportunity for the people of Tenbury to have a focus," he said.

"This is an excellent facility and will open up all sorts of opportunities, " he said.

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