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Bid to save community hub as site put up for sale

BBC Picture of a lady wearing a blue top. There is a bar and piano in the background.BBC
Siobhan said she had started a college course after attending a group at the community hub

A woman who was housebound for eight years before she started attending a community hub has said it would be "devastating" if the venue had to close.

The Crescent & Co, based in Batley, needs to raise £300,000 to buy the site it operates from on Station Road after the landlord put the building up for sale.

The organisation, founded in August 2021 following the pandemic, aims to offer specialist support, social events and courses for the community.

Siobhan Walker, who takes part in a number of groups at the site, said the venue had "given [her] a purpose".

The community interest company was set up as part of the social prescribing network and provides a safe space for people who need company, support and weekly lunches.

Staff can also make referrals to professional services when needed.

Ms Walker, who was housebound due to illness, said her husband had been her primary carer for 18 years.

She said attending the Crescent & Co had given him the opportunity for some respite.

"That means he's able to go to university, because he knows I'm in a safe place and that's so give us a lot more freedom as a family," she said.

"I've learnt so many new skills - jewellery making, knitting."

Ms Walker said the community group's founder, Paula Chamberlain, had given her a sewing machine and she was now doing a course in clothes-making at college.

"I never would've had that opportunity without the Crescent & Co," she said.

Five people sat round a table talking and playing dominoes, one of the groups which brings people together at The Crescent.
A fundraising campaign has been launched to buy the building in Batley

Chief executive Ms Chamberlain said she had always planned to buy the building "so it would be owned as a community asset and locked in the community forever, as a legacy".

She said she had begun applying for funding from national bodies when she found out the building was being put up for sale.

"We do have an option to buy it, but if I exercise that option I've no money to buy it," she said.

"It's made it a more urgent situation because those applications for funding take between six and 12 months to complete.

"I'd be really confident we'd get one of the funds, but I can't say for definite."

A lady with long blonde hair with a red jumper on is sat next to a bar area. There is a plant on the bar.
Paula Chamberlain, who founded The Crescent, said she needs to raise £300,000

Ms Chamberlain said she was left with no other option but to start crowdfunding and had launched a campaign in a bid to raise the money to buy the building.

"I know times a really hard for everybody but I can't not try my best with this one," she said.

"I can't imagine this place not being here, it is just unthinkable."

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