Highbury Hall is changing ... and we need your help

Where we have come from

• The Tenterden Youth Club was founded in 1966 with the aim of:

  'helping and educating youth through their leisure time activities so to develop their physical mental and spiritual capabilities that they may grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society and that their conditions of life may be improved.'

• This was achieved and managed by a committee who built the hall for general community use and the provision of a Youth Club and who operate as a registered charity.

• The trustees originally leased the land from Tenterden Council and in 1974 Ashford Borough Council became the owners. The freehold was transferred to the hall trustees in 1986 with the proviso that if the hall failed, the land would revert to Ashford.

 

Where we are today

• Times change and so do the needs of the town youth. The Club slowly declined and so did the fabric of the building. Running repairs and maintenance continued to be carried out but even these are showing their age.

• In February 2011, a new committee was formed and the future of the Youth Club and the Hall was considered in detail.

• It was decided that there were two fundamental priorities and a long term goal. Firstly, a fully costed schedule of repairs and improvements was required before refurbishment could commence. Secondly, although the hall still provides a venue for several local groups, the committee looked for ways of realising its original objective of helping the Tenterden Youth. Lastly the committee is planning for the construction of a new hall to replace the existing building when this becomes necessary.

• The results of the Tenterden Youth Survey carried out by Ashford Borough Council at the request of the Tenterden Improved Group clearly show that a Youth Café tops the list of requirements identified. We were ideally positioned to facilitate this Café for several reasons.

• The development of the hall can be carried out with this specific need in mind. The hall is ideally situated in the centre of the town. We have a specific goal of helping the youth of the town.

Where are we going

• Our first and primary aim is to ensure that the hall does not fail and revert to Ashford Borough Council

• Work is already underway to improve the external appearance of the building standing as it does on the important and heavily travelled route between Tesco and the High Street

• The committee has commissioned a full report on the present building and have costed many of the repairs required

• We have consulted our current users and are developing our plans with their needs in mind

• We have started to enlist the help of other interested groups in the area whose aims of improving Tenterden coincide with ours

• Our specific plans include:

  • A modern kitchen and servery area to provide the needs of a Youth Café

  • Provision of tidy storage areas for our existing users

  • The updating and resiting of an unsightly oil storage tank

  • The provision of a refurbished meeting room which will also provide a separate area to house computer games and entertainment for users of the Youth Café

  • Refurbishment of the toilet facilities

  • Improvement to internal flooring

  • Improvement of internal lighting

  • Internal decoration and alterations

  • External decoration and improvement

  • Clearance and on-going maintenance of the car park and grassed areasecialist tradesmen

We have a very willing committee who have already rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in to some of the labour intensive tasks that were required but we now have to urgently address some of the areas that require specialist tradesmen

This requires money. We have some funds which we have generated from the management of the hall and we have already invested some of this commissioning surveys and attending to the immediate health and safety related items.

Now comes the work to provide a local facility for local people to a standard that we expect in Tenterden. Please help as we cannot do this on our own. We have the knowledge, the building and the plans, now we need the resources to complete the work required to make this Community Project the success that it deserves to be.

Highbury Hall
A community project
HIGHBURY LANE • TENTERDEN • KENT • TN30 6LE