Community aspirations to improve sports and arts opportunities in the market town had been expressed through a number of consultation exercises. The challenge was to meet those wishes on a limited budget…. and then sustain them.

Aims and Objectives

Health is one of the five themes which drive Hambleton District Council’s corporate priorities with ambitious targets set to increase the provision of physical activities and the arts as a means of improving health.

The small market town of Easingwold was the only conurbation in the district which failed to meet Sport England guidelines - which look to have access for residents to a sports hall within 30 minutes of home. Nor did it have any performing arts facilities. But with a population of 3,500 and as a rural capital serving around 26,000 more it did accommodate a thriving independently managed community facility – the Galtres Centre.The town centre manor house had already been converted into a community centre with social facilities, leisure hall, offices, all weather floodlit pitch, crèche and fitness studio.

Hambleton wanted to meet these community needs but within a strictly limited capital budget and with no on going revenue demands.

Costs and Resources

In 2009 HRH Princess Anne realised those dreams when she officially opened the town’s new £1.1 million sport and entertainment centre. It completed a 25 year plan to create a state of the art community facility for the town. And it is a tribute to partnership work at its best – the scheme was spearheaded by the Galtres Centre itself with help from the District Council. Because of the high level of community support the authority was able to approve that 100% of all developer contributions – some £488,000 – could be put into the scheme. This is money received by local authorities as a result of new building schemes where cash has to be allocated to community facilities. And it also brought in cash from Sport England’s Community Investment Fund, WREN (Waste Recycling Environmental) and in donations from a wide range of community organisations, many of them local to the town.

Results

Community engagement was a driver to this scheme reaching fruition. When the initial options appraisal and feasibility study – on two possible sites – failed, essentially because of a lack of partnership commitment, the district council remained committed to improving provision.

Five key community groups were seen as being vital to bring through the vision – local town and parish councils, schools, the local Sports Council, the Easingwold Local Strategic Partnership and importantly local residents. And it was through them that a partnership between the Galtres Centre and the District Council was created to look to build a new sports hall and convert the existing community hall into a performing arts venue.

Work was carried out by a local builder and was delivered on budget and a day ahead of time! The sports hall is now home to indoor football, indoor basketball, indoor tennis, badminton, indoor short mat bowls, exercise classes and martial arts. And the arts hall is home to several amateur groups, is a venue to touring plays, cinema and tribute bands and hosts dance sessions. And they both meet the needs of audiences young and old, those from isolated communities, schoolchildren as part of their curriculum, volunteers working towards qualifications and young people with learning difficulties.

Good Practice

As a result of this project, the Galtres Centre has seen a net increase in usage - and an increase by key community groups with its ability to offer a wider range of activities and different ways in which to participate in those activities.

The programme of activities is still evolving and the partnership ethos adopted during the project is being applied to this - the local schools sports partnership and the community safety partnership are involved in guiding the establishment of new activities for children and teenagers.

New activities bring new types of customers and they are being actively encouraged to become involved with the organisation of the Galtres Centre so increasing the capacity of the centre to sustain and develop into the future. There is greater community cohesion with different sections of the community now working together on other volunteering initiatives.

The publicity generated from the success of the scheme has also given rise to the challenge of exporting the experience to other community groups across North Yorkshire - in Malton, Helmsley and Leyburn.

Delivering such a high quality venue on budget and on time is commendable, but this would not have been achieved without the community ‘buy in’ which clearly came from the engagement process. It led to the delivery of this project and the high level of community ownership fostered as part of this process will help sustain it into the future.

Photos courtesy of Hambleton District Council.