Save Fairycroft House

I understand that the Croft is being listed as a community asset - though hard to understand how it could be seen as anything else! Our son goes to Youth Club there every week, and it has been a lifeline both to him and to me over the last seven years. As a learning disabled youngster he finds it hard to make friends, but like any other teenager wants to have fun, share interests, and enjoy the company of like-minded peers. The Accuro club provides all these things - it is absolutely unique in its 1:1 attention to the needs of disabled teens.The staff and volunteers at Accuro have given my son confidence, fun and self-esteem - qualities that one simply cannot put a price on in terms of making life worth living. I have also hugely appreciated the support those same caring staff have provided to parents like me, whose lives are often difficult and lonely.  ACCURO relies on the Fairycroft building for this wonderful provision. It would not be an exaggeration to say my son sees it as his "second home."

A strong sense of community keeps the heart of a town beating! Social Anthropologist Mary Ann Ochoton recently spoke on the ‘Tonight’ programme. She said: “How well we know our neighbours has a massive impact on our lives not just social. Being a part of a community – a bigger social group – isn’t just good for us a sort of fun, optional extra to improve your quality of life. It is absolutely essential to the way that human beings are built. We aren’t isolated beings. We can’t operate in isolation. That’s why solidarity confinement is used as a punishment. It is so essential for human well being to have meaningful relationships and interactions with others that if you take that away people become ill.”

A recent County Council press statement makes much of a "new multicentre" as an explanation for a possible "disposal" (sale!) of FairyCroft House - bad news parading as good! The gloriously titled(!)"multicentre" is not "new" but in the much smaller ex Social Care building. This will provide much needed adult education venue, but it is also proposed that youth groups be squeezed into a claustrophobic cellar part of this building with sewage pipes running across low ceilings. Serious health and safety concerns have previously been voiced about this building being unsuitable for youth group use. FairyCroft is NOT surplus to demand, if it truly was then why on earth are ECC presently paying out rent for local offices when they have existing recently refurbished first floor offices at the Croft?  A most peculiar situation! We plead: "Please Councillor Gooding (and other decision makers) live up to your surname and choose the correct moral path for local communities because expanding populations need more community learning and leisure space - not less!"

It would cost a lot more to try and rebuild places like Croft from scratch in the future with town getting bigger