West Granton Community Trust is to close The Prentice Centre, it has been confirmed. The management committee made the heartbreaking decision at a board meeting on Monday evening, citing impossible economic challenges.
The popular community centre in Granton Mains will cease programme activities from this Friday and the building will close in three months. Three members of staff are affected.
The Prentice Centre was one of three new community centres built across North Edinburgh in the late 1990s thanks to European Poverty and Urban Aid funding through local agency The Pilton Partnership.
The others were Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre and Muirhouse Millennium Centre, and the new centres could offer new facilities and local programmes to complement those being provided by Craigroyston Community Centre (now closed), West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre and Royston Wardieburn Community Centre.
The Prentice Centre, which was named after longstanding local activist Walter Prentice, housed the local Community Education team and has been the base for a wide range of local groups with activities for local residents of all ages since it opened. Thousands of local folk have attended activities there.
External organisations have also used facilities at the Prentice Centre. Granton Information Centre currently has a satellite office there and the building was also home for North West Carers, among others. Dads Rock held Saturday sessions there and Tragic Carpet Theatre Company has also been running an over-50s drama group at the Centre.
Like other community organisations across the city, The Prentice Centre has found it difficult to attract sufficient external funding to compensate for shrinking council grants over recent years.
Finance, in particular or the lack of it, has always been a concern. I lost count of the number of AGMs I attended where former manager Elizabeth Campbell would catalogue the financial challenges. It was a running joke – we had a wee laugh about it every year. It doesn’t seem quite so funny now.
But this was the case year after year, and despite everything, the Centre worked minor miracles and managed to put on a pretty decent programme.
The Prentice Centre last fought a spirited – and ultimately successful – campaign back in 2016 to fight closure following savage funding cuts by the city council. Once again the Centre survived to fight again another day … then there was Covid.
The Covid pandemic hit the Centre particularly hard over the last two years, forcing shutdowns which meant that no income could be generated.
Costs have been cut to the bone, and staff have gone above and beyond to continue to provide a service, but now the soaring price of overheads – over which the Prentice Centre has no control – have finally made the Centre’s future untenable.
Dedicated staff Moira, Mary and Stuart are understandably devastated, but not surprised, by the news. Mary has been with The Prentice Centre for more than 24 years and Stuart has been there since it opened in 1997.
There’s no doubt that the centre’s closure will be a huge blow to the local area and it’s particularly cruel given that facilities are now slowly beginning to open up again after pandemic lockdowns.
A community event at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre last week saw large numbers of activists getting together once again after two years of virtual shutdown. The recovery has come just too late for the Prentice Centre, however.
Council leader Labour’s Cammy Day is a Forth councillor and he held surgeries in The Prentice Centre. In a statement, his office responded: “Cammy has met with the board and asked officers to engage with them to see if there is any support or advice we can provide.”
Manager Moira Fanning explained: “All avenues for accessing alternative funding have been explored, but there is just no money out there. We deeply regret that we will no longer be able to serve the West Granton community. We thank all our members for their support over the years”.
Thank you, too, Moira, Mary and Stuart. You really couldn’t have done any more.
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