A COMMUNITY centre which has previously been described as a ‘sad sight’ was given a warm welcome during its official opening.
Nick Hurd, Conservative MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, formally unveiled the Kate Fassnidge Community Centre, in High Street, Northwood, on Friday. It replaces the derelict Northwood Dining Club building.
Construction of the complex was made possible by the financial contribution, known as a section 106 agreement, paid by developer Howarth Homes when it built the residential block in which the community centre sits.
Andrew Retter, deputy director of the dining club’s owner, the Fassnidge Memorial Trust, and a councillor for neighbouring Northwood Hills ward, said: “It’s taken us an awful long time to see the fantastic hall, which is the result of everyone’s hard work. I must thank Howarth Homes for giving us the fantastic community hall and flats.”
Mr Hurd said: “For years whenever I walked past or drove past this site it was always with a bit of a sigh, thinking what a waste of a great space and sadness at the crumbling façade of the old dining club. This is well done. It fits, works and looks very well.
“The whole of the borough needs to be aware of the opportunity to use this space.”
The building was first a Ritz cinema and then Northwood Dining Club, a social meeting place used mostly by elderly people, but fell into disrepair in the 1990s.
The Kate Fassnidge Memorial Trust, a group set up in memory of an Uxbridge landowner who left property, including Fassnidge Park, to the borough when she died, snapped it up from Hillingdon Council in 1996.
Years of wrangling over planning applications followed, with the council’s planning committee rejecting five schemes before the trust was given the green light on appeal in 2010.
Work finally got under way last year when the dining club was demolished and has been replaced by a three-storey block comprising a replacement community centre on the ground floor and eight apartments above.
The new-look centre, which sits 60, will be available to hire for events and meetings, and comes with kitchen facilities, tables and chairs, and equipment such as a hearing loop and hi-tech lighting system, while a striking picture of its namesake benefactor hangs on the wall.
? Anyone interested in using the hall can contact Frazine Johnson at enquiries@frazinejohnson.co.uk
