One Croydon Community Hubs

What is a Community Hub? 

A ‘close-to-home’, accessible, welcoming and inclusive place where local residents can access wrap-around support, connect to local activities and receive signposting to other services and organisations.  

 

Why does Croydon need Community Hubs? 

We all know the toll that the pandemic took on our local community. Its impact has been exacerbated by financial difficulties at the local authority and the current cost of living crisis.  

In response, local people have been standing up and making a difference themselves by using their strengths, talents and assets to help each other out. Across Croydon, this work has taken the form of Community Hubs.  

 

Making a difference today

Croydon Voluntary Action (CVA) is committed to supporting local people in making a difference, today. Community Hubs are at the heart of CVA’s strategy which places people at the heart of making change happen. While Community Hubs cannot fully replace the provision of statutory services, they can protect and support those who need it most. With this goal in mind, CVA has collaborated with other voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations and established Hubs across the borough.  

 

Community Hubs – Where are they?  

North, Centre and South  

Several Hubs have now been created across Croydon. These include: 

  • The New Addington Community Hub is supported by a team of workers from local VCS organisations as well as those from the NHS and Croydon Council. They will be available to help you find information and support related to staying healthy and active, things to do in your local community and support for carers https://cvalive.org.uk/general-events/. 
  • The Active Communities Hub is a safe, community space in Centrale Shopping Centre where residents of Croydon are encouraged to get active and improve their physical and mental health https://youtu.be/cHIf7gQwZ_w. 
  • His Grace’s Community Hub, in Thornton Heath, is creating a Safe Space Café for young people and a Chill Zone to support better mental health, alongside their existing advocacy and healthy-eating support  https://www.hisgrace-evangelicaloutreach.co.uk/.    
  • Disability Croydon is setting up the Our Space Community Hub in the town centre to host a diverse range of community activities alongside financial, health and well-being support https://www.disabilitycroydon.org.uk/. 
  • Floating Counselling Support is setting up a Community Hub in Woodside to host an accessible transport resource, run a Pop-In for later life and extend the reach of their Heat and Eat schemes https://www.arccltd.com/community-hub. 
  • The Old Lodge Lane Baptist Church is setting up an integrated Community Hub to provide food relief and wrap-around support addressing health inequalities – partnered by the Coulsdon Community Partnership whose Hive Garden will host workshops, open days and Farm to Plate healthy eating and well-being events https://ollbc.org.uk/.  
  • Centre of Change in New Addington are also joining up services to sustain and extend their collective reach - utilising existing assets such as Selsdon Contact's minibus and Good Food Matters’ healthy eating and growing space https://centreofchange.org.uk/.  

 

Community Hubs in action – see for yourself  

CVA has been seeing what is really happening in local Hubs. You can see all the latest news by following these links: 

The New Addington Community Hub

 

The Active Communities Hub 

 https://cvalive.org.uk/active-communities-hub/  

  

Contact details 

For New Addington: james.moore@cvalive.org.uk and communityhub@arccltd.com 

For Active Communities Hub: Ben.Taylor@cvalive.org.uk