Whitby's Eastside Community Hub hopes 'to open more doors' with charity status

The announcement was made recently on the hub’s Facebook page, in which it said: “We have always operated as a company limited by guarantee to protect all our directors.

"However that position also restricts the funding available to us so the decision was taken to close the company and set up as a charity.

"This process is now complete, hopefully opening doors to more opportunities.”

History of Eastside Community Centre

Originally built in the 1980s as a community play centre, providing free after school care for children, Helredale Play centre was closed down, by the then Scarborough Borough Council in 2003, as the council could no longer afford to run the provision.

The building stood empty and neglected for several years before a group of local residents got together with a view to reopening it as a community centre.

Supported by a social enterprise company based in Staithes, who took on a lease for the building, the group was able to attract a small amount of funding which enabled them to repair and redecorate the building.

The renamed Eastside Community Centre reopened in 2006 and, entirely run by volunteers, provided a much-needed base for the delivery of a range of much-needed services on the east side of Whitby.

In 2010, the group became a not-for-profit private company and in 2013 accepted an asset transfer of the building and surrounding outside space, from the council.

Eastside Community Centre was successful in attracting funding to deliver a range of training and activities and began to build a track record of delivering successfully where statutory agencies had struggled.

Also successful in attracting small amounts of funding to improve the building, some minor refurbishments were undertaken to improve the facilities.

By 2019 the building was tired, the roof was leaking and the entire structure was in need of wholesale refurbishment.

The group was looking for funding for this work when the Covid pandemic hit and the building had to be closed for several months.

Emerging from the pandemic, the group put together a bid for Whitby’s allocation of Towns Fund money to totally refurbish and extend the existing building.

At this stage the group was approached by Whitby Boxing Club for help with its project to build a purpose-built facility to accommodate its ever-growing client base.

Eastside Community Centre agreed to hand over part of the outside area to provide a site for the new boxing club.

When it became clear the boxing club had insufficient funds to deliver its project, the centre offered to provide further support by allocating a proportion of the funding in its Towns fund application to enable the boxing club to complete the project.

The project was delivered in two phases - the boxing club first, then the community centre.

Following successful delivery of the project, which came in under budget and enabled some additional townscape work to be included for the council, as well as the creation of a toddler play area, Eastside Community Centre was reopened in March 2024 as Eastside Community Hub.

Along with an IT suite, meeting room and the main hall, the fully accessible facility now also has a successful community café (Calla Café), run in partnership with the Dalewood Trust.

The group made the transition to a charity with the original three company directors becoming the charity trustees.

The new community hub provides a venue for a wide range of activities including yoga, mesh, foreign language classes, Jiu jitsu, youth club and U3A activities as well as Slimming World, Cygnet Law, several self-help groups and various forms of training.

Rooms are available to rent on an hourly basis and the café is open week days between 9am and 4pm.

All of this has been achieved by three volunteers who have devoted hundreds of hours of time and energy to ensure this works for the local community.