Bringing a youth club back into use with London Borough of Lewisham and Grove Park Youth Club Building Preservation Trust

Grove Park Youth Club in Lewisham was opened in August 1966. Having been a valuable asset to the Lewisham community for over four decades, it was forced to close in 2013 due to budget cuts.

In 2018, 52 years after the youth centre first opened, we partnered with London Borough of Lewisham and Grove Park Youth Club Building Preservation Trust (BPT) to secure the building with property guardians and bring the youth club back into use. With the property now handed back to Lewisham council in its newly restored condition, the Grove Park Youth Club will reopen its doors to the community on 26th July 2021 for the first time in eight years.

A lost community asset

The loss of youth services has not just hit Lewisham; funding cuts have forced councils and local authorities to close the doors of youth and community centres all across the UK. The YMCA found that every region in England has suffered cuts to youth services by at least 60% since 2010, leading to severe consequences for young people and the communities in which they live. As Dot Dot Dot founder Katharine Hibbert explored in a recent blog, physical social infrastructure like libraries, cafes and youth centres are essential to community cohesion, and can even be a matter of life or death. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has compounded issues around youth provision even further. Youth charity, UK Youth, found that, despite more demand, 83% of youth centres reported that their level of funding had decreased, while 64% said they were at risk of closure in the next 12 months.

It is little wonder that the Grove Park community were devastated at the loss of another community facility when the Grove Park Youth Club was closed back in 2013. Originally earmarked for demolition, the youth club was initially occupied by another property guardianship company. Despite the building being secured, the community, and in particular the Grove Park BPT, were committed to bringing the youth centre back to its former use.

Partnering with Grove Park Youth Club Building Preservation Trust and Lewisham Council

In collaboration with Lewisham council, youth service providers and local groups, the Grove Park Youth Club BPT put a plan in place for the revival of the youth club. The trust reached out to Dot Dot Dot in 2018 after hearing about our work and social purpose. Not only would we be offering security for the building while renovation work and fundraising was undertaken, but our guardians’ commitment to volunteering helped to bring the building back into good condition. Our experience of collaborating with councils and third party groups like Civic in east London made us the right fit for the trust’s mission to bring the last purpose-built youth club of its kind back to life. 

Bringing the youth club back into use

Since August 2018, our Grove Park guardians have contributed 787 hours of voluntary work, with each guardian contributing most of their voluntary hours to the revival of the centre. 

Their work has included arranging community clean-up days, putting together plans for a community garden, writing funding bids, recruiting volunteers and stakeholder management.

Killian Troy, a Trustee of BPT and a local to Grove Park, lived in the property for two years and contributed almost 300 hours to the cause: “For me, the benefit of being a property guardian is that I live somewhere that doesn’t contribute to London’s housing crisis. We make good use of buildings that would otherwise stand empty or be developed, and I am able to live with others and together we are working in and contributing to the local community.” Nearly two-thirds of our guardians volunteer for causes in their local area, and benefit from stronger social ties to their communities.

Through housing property guardians that care for empty buildings and the communities around them, we have created the opportunity to partner with property owners and third parties like the Grove Park Youth Club BPT and bring a well-loved community asset back into use. Beyond providing property security for empty assets like in standard property guardianship models, we partner with our clients and local groups to invest in their communities – proving that meanwhile use can and should be worthwhile.

If you’d like to hear more about how we work with our clients and their partners, you can sign up to our newsletter, Meanwhile Thoughts, or contact us at partnerships@dotdotdotproperty.com.