Jack Cornwell Community Centre Refurbishment
The story so far.
The concept of realising improvements on Jack Cornwell Community Centre’s building and expand its community use and cultural offer was amongst one of the many voted concept in Little Ilford and was supported by the engagement participant and forms part of the strategic project recommendation within the Newham High Street Phase 1 Report.
202106-nhs-little-ilford (newham.gov.uk)
In July 2022, the Council held an in-person engagement event with local residents to start co-creating the project brief. As part of the engagement, residents prioritised the parts of the building where they thought it was most important to make investment in.
Further Pop-up engagement also took place in August 2022, to capture any further comments and/or ideas that other local residents may have for the community centre.
The brief sent to our lead consultant incorporates all priority ideas proposed by our residents for the refurbishment, and will be explored and developed further as part of the engagement and co-design process with the community, which we envisage will start from June 2023.
In April 2023, Public Works Ltd, appointed by the Council, took on the project. Over the course of their engagement, the team spent a week in May at the centre, engaging with residents, discussing design changes, and gathering input on the community's vision for the space.
Three events were organised at the centre: one in June, another in July, and a third in September. The first event focused on connecting the kitchen and cafe to the garden, the second on generating ideas for the garden, and the third, held in September, delved into exploring mural concepts through written and visual expressions, as well as experimenting with colour palette.
May 2023- Public Works hosted a workshop exploring the design of the kitchen garden and seating area. together with residents, they explored ideas around the garden, collecting recipes and stories, while also exploring existing knowledge of gardening. The evening finished with a community meal. There were approximately 50 attendees to the event. Mostly local people including many women with children.
June 2023- Public Works hosted their second event at the centre Showing visitors the plans for the design of the refurbishment of the building. Talking to visitors about the changes and capturing their input and ideas. There was also a bug-hunting & potting seeds activity for the younger residents to test garden programming ideas for the front of the centre. The evening finished with a large community meal. There were approximately 100-130 attendees to the event. Mostly local people including many women with children.
September 2023- Public Works held a workshop, exploring mural concepts through written and visual expressions, they engage with residents and users of the Jack Cornwell Community Centre in the initial process of thinking about and designing a mural - in
terms of colour palette, imagery and possible layout.
April 2024- Refurbishment works at the centre have started, with Grenville Decorators appointed to undertake the Refurbishment works.
May 2024- We are looking for Resident feedback in selecting the colour scheme for the proposed mural facing Jack Cornwell Street. The Mural concept was inspired by the outcome of the event held at the centre in September 2023 and the recent workshop held by Budstudio at the Litllte Ilfor Youth Zone.
