Positive progress for new Whitnash Civic Centre and Library project

The roof is already on the building, the block work is well underway the water and sewer connections have been completed.

Whitnash Town Council, with the help of a consultant, have been busy looking at how the new centre will be run.

This includes the options for the cafe, what staffing will be needed, if volunteers can help, and how the partnership with the Library will work.

There are monthly meetings with all the partners working on the project such as the builders, architects, Warwick District Council staff, Whitnash Town Council staff, councillors and many others.

A monthly meeting is held to ensure the finances for the project are on track and ad hoc meetings are arranged, should a need arise to resolve something between the regular meetings.

Two of our Whitnash Residents Association councillors have been taking photos weekly so we can keep a record of the progress and have a record for the future, and these are being posted on social media from time to time during the construction.

The Whitnash Civic Centre and Library project is the realisation of an aspiration that came out of the Whitnash Neighbourhood Plan. Cllr Judy Falp led the working group made up of residents, councillors and consultants that over a few years developed the Neighbourhood Plan, which was then the first in the district to made and formally adopted – an achievement in itself.

Judy has continued to be heavily involved in the subsequent work to make the new Civic Centre and Library project a reality, as deputy chairman of the Whitnash Civic Centre Committee, alongside chair, and fellow Residents Association councillor, Tony Heath.

Cllr Falp managed to secure £150,000 from the County Council to relocate the Library into the new civic centre building at Acre Close, thus protecting its long term future in the town.

Without this, there was a danger that the library would have closed altogether.

She was also involved in helping to secure more than £2 million to finance the new civic centre working with the county council, district council, town council, Sport England and residents and businesses.

Such great financial support would have been unthinkable in previous years, but Cllr Falp, Cllr Heath and their fellow Whitnash Residents Association colleagues have once again successfully fought hard to get something for the benefit of the town for years to come.