Senior Citizen Pavilions open the doors to local community groups

Local community groups in Swansea are teaming up with senior citizens to help keep their pavilions open for the long term future.

Swansea Council has been in talks with a number of community groups and senior citizen organisations to ensure that the nine Senior Citizen Pavilions (SCP) in Swansea, can continue running as community facilities.

The pavilions are at Baywood Hall, Birchgrove, De La Beche, Dyfatty, Fforestfach, Glais, Manselton, Mumbles and Pentrechwyth

David Hopkins, Cabinet Member for Communities and Housing, said: “Historically, senior citizen pavilions have only tended to be used by senior citizens. We are looking at changing the licence conditions so that other organisations can use these facilities because it’ll mean they’ll be more sustainable for senior citizen groups and the whole community too. It’s a win-win situation.”

As part of the council’s ongoing plans to look at how best to make use of council-run buildings, all the pavilions will be re-branded as community centres, opening up the opportunity for other local groups to make use of them. The Council will also be offering advice to local groups on how to manage the buildings and generate income to keep them going.

Cllr Hopkins added: “Given the financial pressures faced by the council it’s vital that we look at better and more sustainable ways of keeping these facilities open for the benefit of local communities.”

A group of locals using Glais SCP for watercolour and landscape classes are delighted with the plans to keep the pavilions open to the different groups.

73-year-old Jeff Lee said: “The art group is a real life line for people who go there and the only form of contact for some.

“The Glais pavilion is a tremendous asset for locals and its great to know the council and the various groups are all working together to sustain them as part of the community.”

Part of the new agreement means that local community groups will become responsible for paying for the running of the buildings such as utility bills, and any income generated from the use of the facilities will go direct to the groups and not the council. The council will carry on being responsible for major maintenance of the buildings.

Officers from the Council’s Community Recreation Section have been meeting with user groups at the pavilions and the overwhelming response has been that they wish these buildings to remain open.