The History of Abington Community Centre

 Abington Community Centre was established in 1949 at the instigation of the County Borough of Northampton Education Committee to make use of some temporary wartime buildings that had been placed in Wheatfield road South in an undeveloped area around the then Britain’s Farmhouse.


The Britain’s Farm had been purchased by the Council as part of the Abington Manor Estate, most of it had been used in the 1920s to build the Abington Council Housing Estate and that was true for Wheatfield Road South where the west and south sides were built up, however, the Farmhouse buildings and the north and east side of the street had not been developed. In about 1938 the area around the Farm House was used to put up various temporary buildings for Civil Defence, later in the war, the buildings were put to a number of uses some being more permanent than others.


Initially, the Community Centre was established in what was clearly intended as an Emergency Hospital, and a building behind the Farmhouse. What is now the Old Hall was quite clearly a ward space with two side wards either side the other parts of that building performing more or less as built.


An Association was formed in 1949 to run the building, it was then to organise the activities to take place in the building and in those pre TV days that involved a number of Groups concentrating on particular activities, the only one still running is the Camera Group, but along the way other group existed for periods of time including a Ladies Choir, Whist League Teams, Gardening Groups, Dancing Groups, Craft Groups, Theatre Groups, Art Groups, Youth Group and more recently Carpet Bowls Groups. At the beginning the cost of running the building fell on the Council, the events themselves fell to the Association to organise.


By 1968 as Civil Defence was wound down their remaining base in Briton Terrace became surplus to the Council’s requirements and was added to the Community Centre adding what is now the New Hall which at that time had a concertina dividing wall which could make two rooms of the current New Hall.

income.


In 1974 the Community Centre building was transferred to the New Northamptonshire County Council as an Education Asset, but that bought a change in payment responsibilities, the County did not own many other Community Centres or similar buildings. The Association thus began taking on more costs and where relevant


By 1978 the building had been transferred to Northampton Borough Council by the County Council as a gift and it was placed under their Leisure & amp; Recreation Department, this bought a new Community input but also a further change to make the building more commercial. External hiring now becomes more common, they had always existed on a one-off basis but now they became available for regular bookings.


By the 1980’s Northampton Borough Council decided to invest in the building and built an additional extension on an underused part of Briton Terrace, today this is the Ralph Skinner Room and our New Office which also altered the foyer area.


Local government cutbacks then started to take their toll on the administration of the Centre. And when our then Clerk decided to retire she was not replaced leaving the Officers of the Centre to do the general administration of the building and bookings. This worked to a certain extent but was so dependent on particular individual volunteers being available that change was needed. Also at this time after a conditions survey the Council decided to replace the roof on the old side of the building improving the then run-down look of the building.


Staffing at the Centre had by the end of the Councils Direct administration was down to one, or to be strictly correct about 0.75 of a Facilitator/Caretaker (shared with Weston Favell Parish Hall). The Council then decided, after a lot of discussion and at least three years in the making to further save Council Tax by putting Community Centres “out to tender” to organisations that were interested, and wanted to lease the buildings from them for 40 years and be responsible for all the activities that take place in them. This left the Council as landlords only and them continuing to have responsible for the shell and the outside of the buildings. The Association as then constituted was formally invited to commit to such an arrangement, and the members agreed that we should indeed take up that offer.


Effective 1st April 2012 the Association formally signed the lease and management agreement and the building was ours; this was subject to further financial stretching, but at this stage with
assistance in the form of a reducing grant to administer the building. Initially, we re-hired the NBC’s former caretaker as its single employee and carried on much as before.


As part of the above agreement the Association than an “unincorporated society” and registered The charity was required to become a corporate body, after examining a number of alternatives the Association took the decision to convert using the same name to a Company Limited by Guarantee which took effect on 1 st April 2013, the company was also registered as a Charity and the old Association was dissolved.


Also as part of the takeover, the Council had agreed to renew the wooden outside skirting on the Wheatfield Road fronting to the 1930’s building and provided a brick veneer effect, fully insulated wall dovetailed into the wooden structure of the building. In addition, new Modern Double Glazed Window Frames were added which allowed us to dispense with the meshes which had covered the old single glazed versions. This made the building look so much better, and lifted the previous
unloved appearance.


As was mentioned above it became clear that we needed someone to man the office on a more permanent basis and an additional employee was appointed to look after the office. When the NBC’s former caretaker had to move on the job was reorganised, and we currently have four part-time employees two cleaners/caretakers and two admin positions.


Our Administrator works weekday mornings and is responsible for bookings and general administration of the building, our Finance Assistant works as required totalling 30hpw for both, and
our cleaning/caretaking teamwork 25½ hpw between them.


We currently have six board members who are also our Charity Trustees they have come from a number of sources to assist us to be representative of the public a mixture of ages, sexes and creeds to reflect the people of the area. We could always do with more help to share the load we meet once a month usually in the early evening.