Last week I published a news item about a survey being undertaken on behalf of Hoylake Community Centre (website). Lots of useful feedback has been received and for those that haven’t had chance to complete the short survey yet, the deadline has been extended until 16th May.
It has been announced that the popular Hoylake School of Dance (HSD) is to relocate (September, 2010) from Hoylake Community Centre (HCC) to the empty Jon David furniture showroom on Market Street.
Some locals have been wondering if this means that the Community Centre will have to close. Carla Williams (HCC) has emailed me and says:
As you know HSD were one of our original users and have been very successful and grown to a point where having their own premises makes business sense. They have applied for planning permission on the Jon David building and hope to move shortly and we wish them continued success.
There does seem to be a story that we may be closing (possibly because of the move HSD are planning) and it is very important that local people are aware this is not going to happen. We have spent over £1.3m on the building with much more to come.
And we are confident that the Centre will continue to offer top quality facilities and continual improvements at reasonable cost and remain the largest and best facility in the area.
The team of volunteers at the Centre is currently working on the creation of a Business Plan (part of the requirement of the Asset Transfer) and towards the creation of a new Charitable Company, running the Centre on a long lease from the Local Authority under the Asset Transfer Scheme.
If anybody wishes to chat about the transfer or have any concerns, Vaughan Williams or myself are more than happy to meet up for a chat, just contact reception at Hoylake Community Centre on 0151 632 2889 or email hoylakeparade@btinternet.com
If you’d like to make use of the Centre I’m sure they’d love to hear from you!
I can understand that the Hoylake School of Dance have somewhat out grown the space made available to them at the community centre.
I had no objection to their relocating to the old Woolworths at 100 Market Street.
But is it just me that is somewhat dismayed to see that the original anodized aluminium shopfront of 100 Market Street has now been ripped out and replaced with rather ugly looking white PVCu?
There was nothing in the change of use planning application about this change to the elevational fabric of the building. Or the loss of the shop entrance from Market St with its replacement by a single leaf fire escape door.
I wonder if the WMBC Planning Case Officer was aware of this change before it happened?