Plans for ‘Selby Urban Village’ have received a major boost after £20m of Levelling Up Funding was recently awarded.
Selby Trust are working in partnership with Haringey Council in transforming the Selby Centre, with excellent facilities for the community and beyond.
The £20m government grant – the highest awarded from the Levelling Up Fund to any London borough – will provide key community facilities, including multi-purpose office space, a new community café, a community hall, health and care spaces, boxing club and the provision of a credit union to support low-income residents.
The existing Selby Centre buildings are almost 60 years old, with high maintenance and utility costs.
The huge vote of confidence unlocks the construction of a high-quality, sustainable Selby Centre which’ll be purpose-built to support the activities of community enterprises, projects and training providers.
The redevelopment plans for the Selby Centre include a newly constructed Selby Centre, Food Hub, Community Café and mix of offices and workspaces used by more than 60 different organisations – feature the creation of an “urban village” with “state-of-the art community facilities”.
A second phase of work, which will need to be funded separately, would see 215 new homes built on the existing Selby Centre site, at least 50% of these being council homes at council rents.
The money, which is the single largest in London, comes from the latest round of the levelling up fund, with councils and organisations across the country sharing a £2.1bn pot.
Paul Butler, SEO of Selby Trust said:
“The Selby Urban Village Scheme and Levelling Up award is a tremendous achievement and opportunity for the Selby Community.
Working with the local community and Haringey Council, we’ll provide quality community services and inspirational spaces and learning for all.”
The Selby Urban Village scheme will also see Bull Lane Playing Field transformed into a revitalised sports and leisure hub with a four-court sports hall, floodlit full-sized artificial grass pitch for football and rugby, two junior grass football pitches, an artificial non-turf cricket pitch and multi-use games area.
An inclusive new community park will also be created, including a new adventure playground, communal planting and food growing areas and new paths and cycle routes. The existing urban green space has become physically disconnected from nearby homes. To break down these barriers, ecological areas and community planting are proposed along the edges of the fields to animate these thresholds and new pedestrian and cycle routes will draw people into the park, encouraging active travel and improving connectivity between neighbouring communities.
Edward Ihejirika, Chair of the Selby Board of Trustees said:
“This is great news for the Selby Community and brings much needed resources to the neighbourhood. It’s a £20 million kick start for the Selby Urban Village delivery and is an exemplar for how partnerships between community organisations and Local Authorities can work.
The Selby Urban Village Vision is for a sustainable partnership that has the Selby Trust’s culturally rich communities involved at its heart. The Community will find high quality community services and inspirational spaces, which will provide connectivity, engagement and learning or all.”
You can find out more about the Selby Urban Village project, on the project website.
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