Save our community hub

Published: 3 March, 2011

• I AM the vicar of St George’s Church in Queen Square, Holborn. Our church has very close links with Millman Street Community Centre, which the council proposes to close by virtue of withdrawing funding from June this year.

I see first hand the distress and despair caused by this decision. I am not sure the council can be aware of the depth of impact on people’s lives that closing the centre will have.

Something else that is becoming clear is that this is something that will affect the whole of Holborn. I gather that a petition has been signed by more than 4,000 people asking that the centre be left open.  

Holborn is a very connected area – there is genuine community here, and it is very special to those of us who live here. The community centre is well-named – it is a much-needed hub of relationship and connectedness that reaches far beyond itself. To cut it out would have serious effects in all kinds of unforeseen but significant ways.

We all know what a colossally difficult situation our council is in with these cuts – and we sympathise. But we also know that cutting Millman Street is not the way forward, not if we value (as we do) a community and way of life that values all our citizens.

THE REVD JOHN VALNTINE
St George’s Church, Queen Square, WC1

• COUNCILLORS and officials came to a consultation meeting concerning the impact of closing the Millman Street Centre last Thursday; it was great to see more than 150 users and local people packed into the centre. 

Camden’s proposal is that in future those elderly users of the centre with a high level of need would be provided with this essential service at council-run centres at Chalk Farm or Kilburn instead of in this much-loved local centre. 

This it was acknowledged would, by the time all the pick-ups and drop-offs have been allowed for, sometimes involve a two-hour-plus round trip. Now I know many people in Camden commute to work but is it really acceptable that, in order to access a service that is their lifeline, some of the frailest of our neighbours who are in their 80s and 90s are required to take up the rigours of a daily commute.

CRISPIN BURDETT
Chair, Holborn Community Association