Since Cafe Afrika closed down, Star FM moved out and Dawe Media Ltd took advantage of a break clause in their lease, most of the Howard Mallet Centre has been standing empty. Some community and sport groups are currently using the gym at the back.

So the centre is back in the hands of the Cambridge County Council. They're backing a plan to sell a 125 year lease to Citylife, who in turn wish to develop a new 'Cambridge Community Innovation Centre' on the site.

There's some local opposition to this plan, as most people have good memories of when it was a community and youth centre, some feel that the citylife plan doesn't fulfil local community needs.

A local residents group, PACT, which formed in response to the County Council selling the lease to Dawe Media back in 1998, have discovered a dispute over some of the land, placed preservation orders on the trees in the park and submitted a planning application to knock the building down and return it to park. In the past, they've stated that if a 'true community use' was found for the building, they would back it.

So we've meet quite a few of the 'stake-holders' involved in the building; local residents, people from PACT, councilors for the area, youth workers for the area, city life people and various other characters...

It seems that nearly everyone sees the madness in leaving a building such as 'The Mallet' sitting there empty whist there's an obvious need for more 'community spaces' in Cambridge. Most people seem to suggest the building could be sitting there empty for at least a year or two before anything will happen. Plans and planning law as they are.

So some people started talking and putting together a 'propsal' for the space. At the moment it's looking something like this.

- A short term (1yr?) plan for the building, to 'make use of the space' while everyone else makes up their mind.

- Facilitate the use of the building by youth, community and sport groups.

- Open an 'Independent Media Centre' in the old Star FM space, to host 209 radio (Cambridge community radio) alongside open internet access and workshop space (including a recording studio!)

- Open up a 'Community Cafe' (not a venue) in the front bit, pretty straight forward and nothing too grand. A "nice-open-community-space" of sorts.

Anyway, if you'd like to know more / get involved / have a group that would like to use that kind of space / have skills / time / stuff to donate... Drop me the group a line at  hmcwg@wereallneighbours.co.uk

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More info:

209 Radio
 http://www.209radio.co.uk/
Cambridge Community Radio station, hopefully they'll be the proud holders of a 'Community FM license' by early next year. Very much a grass-roots community project and they're involved in workshops and lots of lovely things. They've been looking for a space to work from for over a year...

PACT
 http://www.colc.co.uk/cambridge/forum/pact/
Petersfield Area Community Trust - Interesting website with info / background on the whole thing.

Citylife:
"Citylife works with communities to regenerate social, economic and intellectual capital. It does this through partnerships with business, government and the voluntary sector, and a network of individuals."
 http://www.citylifeltd.org/