Craven Arms community centre seeks loan

A south Shropshire community centre facing a funding shortfall of £15,000 is holding discussions with Shropshire Council over getting a loan to help it stay open.

Jonathan Hyams, manager at Craven Arms Community Centre today said they had lost funding as a result of Government cuts and were looking at ways to keep the centre up and running.

He said they did not know if the centre would close, but they had contingency plans in place.

It emerged that the community centre was in financial trouble at a meeting of Craven Arms Town Council earlier this week.

Mr Hyams said: "In common with many other local charities, the community centre in Craven Arms has been affected by a number of issues, the recent recession, the national financial uncertainty and the fairly savage recent funding cuts in public spending.

"During the summer, it was becoming increasingly clear that the centre was likely to face difficulties in meeting its financial targets.

"The centre's board of trustees a recently agreed a number of measures to make we can come through what we anticipate will be difficult financial times ahead."

He said measures included discussions with Shropshire Council about access to a three-year loan to meet short term needs

Mr Hyams said this was also backed by a plan to reduce costs, by cutting staff hours if necessary, though he said this would inevitably create difficult working conditions for staff. The centre has seven part-time employees and two full-time members of staff.

Matt Smith, chairman of the board of trustees, said staff had been working actively with trustees.