Funding to transform old Hackney tram shed into community hub
A mental health charity has received £150,000 to transform an old tram shed in Hackney’s Eastway Depot into a vibrant community mindfulness hub.
Core Arts received the funding from City Bridge Trust, the City Corporation’s charitable funder.
The grant will create a space for local community and voluntary organisations to deliver workshops and courses including gardening, cooking, digital skills and media, creative writing, painting and sports.
Core Arts promotes positive mental health and wellbeing through creative learning, providing quality community education, training, employment and social enterprise initiatives.
The new building will offer office, storage and performance space for its five partners – Hackney Playbus, Hackney Play Association, Hackney Youth, ecoActive. It will also cater for other local social enterprises, charities and community groups.
The new facility will help Core Arts reach those most in need across the borough.
The charity will commission specially designed shipping container offices within the grounds of the depot, letting them out as a performance and rehearsal spaces.
Dhruv Patel, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust committee, said:
“This project will really bring the local community together and support Hackney’s mental health.
“It’s a great opportunity to bring complementary services together on one site, and if this model is successful, it could be replicated in another town.
“City Bridge Trust is committed to tackling disadvantage and inequality in London and will continue to support charities making London a fairer and better place to live.”
Paul Monks, Director of Core Arts, said
“Our vision is for the transformation of the depot from a place of ‘storage’ into a thriving hub of social enterprise. The project will enable local community and voluntary organisations to work collaboratively to deliver a rich package of services that reduce poverty, raise aspirations and increase individual and community wellbeing.
“We offer a collaborative service model that begins with co-location, but ends with the delivery of truly integrated services that provide residents in Hackney’s most deprived communities– with a menu of health, education, cultural, training, leisure and employment opportunities that can be accessed through the Eastway Community Hub.”
City Bridge Trust is the funding arm of the City of London Corporation’s charity, Bridge House Estates. It is London’s biggest independent grant giver, making grants of £20 million a year to tackle disadvantage across the capital.
The Trust has awarded around 8,000 grants totalling over £400 million since it first began in 1995. It helps achieve the City Corporation’s aim of changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Londoners.
ENDS
Media Enquiries
Kristina Drake
Media Officer, City of London Corporation
07710860884 / 020 7332 1125
Notes to editors
About the City of London Corporation:
The City of London Corporation is the governing body of the Square Mile dedicated to a vibrant and thriving City, supporting a diverse and sustainable London within a globally successful UK.
About City Bridge Trust
City Bridge Trust is the funding arm of Bridge House Estates, a Registered Charity, with its primary aim the maintenance and support of five Thames bridges: Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark, Blackfriars and the Millennium footbridge.
City Bridge Trust was established in 1995 to make use of funds surplus to bridge requirements and provides grants totalling around £20m per year towards charitable activity benefitting Greater London. The City of London Corporation is the sole trustee of the Bridge House Estates.
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