About Centre E Community Hub
Centre E is a charity-run, multi-purpose venue located on Barton Road in the heart of Ely. Centre E is host to a large hall with mirrored wall & dance floor, meeting/counselling rooms, a therapy room with treatment table, a training kitchen, offices and a variety of multi-use spaces, with more coming in 2024!
We are Youth Ely Hub, a CIO run by a team of Trustees who are all volunteers. We strive to use our revenue to develop new and improved facilities, regenerate our existing spaces and above all else, to keep our hire costs low to the benefit of Ely and the wider community. We proudly support small businesses, along with a wide range of community groups, educational facilities and many therapy services.
Centre E has served many purposes throughout its history, it’s current iteration as a community centre is just the latest in a long line of varied uses! Originally it was built as a drill hall for Ely’s ‘B’ Company, 1st Battalion the Cambridgeshire Regiment in 1939. Located in the corner of Barton Road’s (all-day, free) car park, formerly the Parade Ground, the building has been adapted and changed since this initial use, including to serve as a school for struggling young people who needed a different educational structure.
Youth Ely Hub CIO was founded by Cllr Elaine Griffin-Singh, a former mayor of Ely. Originally driven by a desire to provide much needed youth facilities, the charity raised funds to renovate the building to provide not only youth facilities, but also a range of other rooms and spaces for the wider community. The charity’s other founding members included fellow councillors Alison and Christine Whelan, Jo Pearson and the late Mike Rouse and Nigel Clarke, both sadly missed.
Since its opening, the demand for youth services fell as other facilities and services became available in Ely and the youth service no longer operates. We however continue to host Centre 33 who were pre-existing tenants before we began to operate the building. They are themselves a charity and offer a range of services and advice to young people in the area.
Today we host a variety of thriving small businesses and therapists, plus various other counselling services and a resident hypnotherapist. Kumon School operates from our building and also a Polish School on weekends throughout the year.
One of our newest residents is Voluntary Community Action East Cambs (VCAEC), another charity who provide services and volunteer initiatives, including social car and gardening schemes. They also connect volunteers with volunteering opportunities so if this interests you, please do get in touch.
In 2024 we are undertaking a large and exciting new programme of redevelopment within the building, improving facilities and modernising the interiors to encourage more users to make use of our facilities:
- Room 7 has been refurbished and redecorated, including the installation of glass bricks to bring natural light into the space, along with new seating and screen to enable meetings/consultations and/or therapy bed based therapeutic services. We have also installed curtains to soften the space and afford privacy from the corridor from which the room is accessed.
- Formerly called “The Purple Room”, Room 6 is almost complete as of May 18th, 2024. This work has seen extensive remodelling to raise the floor level to the corridor height, expanding the usable space by around ⅓ and removing the landing/stair step down which caused considerable accessibility issues. This room will become a mixed use space, suitable for small meetings, board room meetings and excitingly, Ely’s first Hot-Desking facility.
- Room 3 will be transformed next, including a new softened open plan interior with carpeted floors, comfortable sofas and chairs and a new kitchen with cooker and fridge/freezer facilities. With a new open plan, this room will offer both a larger area for group activity sessions, but also a comfortable homely setting for the many social care/therapy services which operate in our building. Rooms 2 & 3 are currently let as one unit – post renovation, they will be bookable individually allowing for more bookings at the same time within the centre.
- Room 2 will round out the renovations on our non-hall side of the building. We will be transforming the space into a large multi-purpose room with a larger open floor plan. There will be a new mirror wall to offer a much needed dance studio facility and newly laid flooring, suitable for dance, fitness and other meetings/activities. We will also be improving the sound and thermal insulation in the space to make it suitable throughout the year and later in the evening also.
- In addition to these works, we will also be preparing a storage facility which regular groups can rent space within, to store their equipment and supplies to better facilitate their various activities.
- The work started in our Main Hall last year will resume. In addition to the enlarged floor-plan and a brand new double-extra wide cooker fitted kitchen, we will be investing in a staging solution, to be accompanied by a new dynamic lighting system for events, functions, parties and theatre purposes, along with a new sound system. We have also invested in a new set of banqueting chairs for the centre, which can be hired for events such as weddings/parties/theatre etc.
- A new large HD welcome screen will be launched soon in the main entrance, greeting groups’ and events’ attendees as they enter the building, as well as advertising what’s on and which groups and services run within the building (a matching facility will also be installed inside the entrance on the other side of the building.) The main lobby will soon be redecorated and modernised to offer a fresh new warm welcome to all of our users.
Following this we will be looking at other rooms with the building to continue a programme of redecoration and refurbishment, along with an open day, a Christmas gift market and various other events through to the end of 2024.
There will be some disruption during the works, we will contact room/hall bookers to find them a temporary alternative space to minimise disruptions to their activities.