Burst pipes

The first real challenge in 2011 may be keeping open the two community buildings which St Michael’s owns (last outlined here on 4th July 2008).

The photograph shows one result of the water pipe which burst over the New Year at the Littlecoates Community Centre (on the site of what was St Alban’s Church between the 1950s and 1970s). For years, the Centre has always seemed to be six months away from closure, but things like the support of the Ward Councillors has usually staved this off. A new community group has just registered itself as a limited company in the hope of making a viable business plan and taking on a peppercorn lease in 2011, but there is almost nothing in the Centre’s bank account at the moment and the flood does make it look all the more like an up hill struggle.

Meanwhile what was Bishop Edward King Church between the 1960s and the beginning of this century is safely let to the Grimsby Institute of HE and FE on terms which include allowing use by community groups. I have no specific reason to think this will come to an end soon, but a silent alarm goes off under a different hat in the back of my head each time mention is made of the need in the current economic climate for FE Colleges to rationalise budget and plant.