History of The Gateway
Background | Timeline
The Ravenscliffe area is a large pre 1920’s housing estate on the edge of Bradford. There are good size houses with generous gardens on tree-lined streets. But Ravenscliffe has its fair share of problems. There are empty properties, school closures, anti-social behaviour.
In recent years, Government funding has been available for education and employment projects, neighbourhood wardens have been introduced and a new local housing trust has been set up.
The Ravenscliffe Community Association decided to lead a project to build a new multi-purpose community centre. The idea came from a consultation exercise involving 250 residents in 2001. People wanted a facility that could be used by children, families and older people as well as offer health care; they wanted ‘a place where people could gather’.
The Association had most of the ingredients for a successful project: an idea, a site, a group of committed residents, some funding opportunities and the support of the Ravenscliffe Community Development Project. But the group had to develop designs for the building, secure funding for construction and produce a viable business plan for the long term use of the building. No one in the Association had done anything like this before.
Contact was made with the national Glass-House Community Led Design agency which helped the Association through the design and construction process.
