Community hub secures £170,000 in grants

Those involved with the hub said it meant its good work could continue

A community hub in Cornwall's Clay Country has been given about £170,000 in grants to continue its "important work".

ClayTAWC in St Dennis will provide new services, as well as being able to buy the building it is leasing and upgrade the kitchen.

It has been awarded a £96,565 Community Levelling Up grant by Cornwall Council, from the government's £7.6m Community Levelling Up Programme (CLUP).

An additional £73,894 of match funding will come from the St Dennis and Nanpean Community Trust, which distributes funds raised through a planning agreement linked to the incinerator in the area.

New services at the 24-year-old centre will include work with young people on self-harm awareness as well as mental health and menopause awareness.

There will be diabetes-prevention activities and in addition, a project to create an historic archive through the local Old Cornwall Society and the University of Exeter.

Dick Cole, local Cornwall Councillor and ClayTAWC chairman of the board of directors, said: “ClayTAWC has been an extremely important community hub at the centre of St Dennis for over 24 years.

"Our lease on the Old School building is coming to an end, but the grants from Community Levelling Up and the St Dennis and Nanpean Community Trust mean that we will be able to purchase our centre and our important work will be able to continue...

“We look forward to boosting the provision of services and activities out of ClayTAWC for the people of St Dennis, Clay Country and even further afield.”

Cllr Louis Gardner, Cornwall Council portfolio holder for economy, said: “This is the first successful grant application from the second phase of the programme and is exactly the kind of levelling up community initiative that the funding was designed for.

"I encourage more projects to get in touch to apply for this kind of funding.”

Cornwall Council administers funding from the Community Levelling Up Programme, offering grants of between £5,000 and £200,000 to support projects that tackle priorities for funding identified by local communities across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.