From spare room office to prominent High Street location — an Isle of Wight community council is helping to regenerate Newport.
The former Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop on Newport High Street is now the home of Newport and Carisbrooke Community Council.
With offices for staff on the first floor, the ground floor has been divided into flexible exhibition space, a meeting room, working space and shop lets for small independent businesses or charities.
At the moment, the shop lets are offering cost-of-living advice and support for those who need it.
It recently hosted the National Gallery’s touring exhibition of John Constable’s The Cornfield, which attracted almost 1,000 visitors (pictured).
Jones-Evans: Commitment to the High Street
Councillor Julie Jones-Evans says it shows the community council’s commitment to the High Street.
She hopes it will be a vibrant place, with small spaces for small businesses, and the community council could have gone anywhere but it was important to be seated in the heart of town.
Councillor Jones-Evans said there are good projects happening in Newport now, highlighting the NHS hub and Wadhams project with Platform One, and in six months the town would be a lot different.
Public Works Loan Board
The project has cost around £706,000, to buy the building and refurbish it with funding from a loan from the Public Works Loan Board, the parish precept and grant funding. Through loan repayments, the council and Newport residents will pay roughly £52,000 a year, for the next ten years.
Councillor Geoff Brodie, Newport and Carisbrooke Community Council’s finance lead, said he has always been cautious with how taxpayers’ money is spent but the shop will become an asset beneficial to residents.
Meetings of the community council are now also being held there.
Positive feedback
The feedback from residents, council clerk Josh Tombleson said, is that the project has gone down well and they have been impressed with the investment in the building.
He said the High Street presence has allowed the council to speak to residents which helps shape the authority’s activities.
Custodian of Newport Carisbrooke Heritage Society
The shop has also enabled the council to become a custodian of the Newport Carisbrooke Heritage Society with the hopes to present its archive at a later date.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which News OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may have been made by OnTheWight. Ed
