Dundee community centre set to stay after residents' push back against planned closure

A “lifeline” community centre in Dundee’s east end is set to stay after council bosses ripped up plans to move its services to a new £100m super-school.

Council officers have recommended that Douglas Community Centre is retained following a public consultation.

The local authority had been looking at moving a number of its services in the area, with a new £100m community campus due to open in August at the city’s Drumgeith Park.

“I’d have been lost without it”

Wendy Matthew, from Douglas, visits the centre’s food larder every week as well as some of its other groups.

“We were all panicking,” she told STV News. “I’d either have to have the heating on or eat because I’ve got disabilities and the cold makes it worse.

“Where would I go for help? This centre’s brilliant, you come in and you get help for anything.

“If it had closed, I’d have been lost without it.”

Clare Holland runs a knitting group at the centre and said a move to the Drumgeith Campus would not be feasible.

She said: “A lot of the ladies are retired, a lot have mobility issues […] it’s not within walking distance from Douglas, it’s not a frequent bus route.

“I don’t think anybody would have gone if we’d had to move to the new campus. We would have had to have looked for a different site elsewhere.”

“It’s a lifeline”

Margaret Hogg, chairperson of the community centre’s local management group, said: “We pulled the community together, we had a mass meeting attended by more than 100 people.”

“It’s a lifeline,” she added. “You see people come through the door with their heads down and then they’ll go to the various groups and within a month they’re smiling.

“Particularly the older people and the isolation that they feel. If they have a problem, someone in here will fix it for them.

“Everyone felt the same – that we had to fight for it and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

Feedback has been “taken on board”

More than 1,300 people responded to Dundee City Council’s consultation exploring the relocation of various services to the Drumgeith Community Campus, which is set to open alongside Greenfield Academy in August.

In a report to go before councillors on Monday, it is recommended that Whitfield Library and the Hub Library are both closed, with a decision on the future of Douglas Sports Centre deferred.

It is being recommended that Douglas Community Centre remains open, with council officers acknowledging concerns from local residents.

Councillor Mark Flynn, leader of Dundee City Council, told STV News: “I went down and visited it myself quite recently to see what was going on and it’s quite a buzzing place with a lot of events going on.

“I think it’s got to be acknowledged the efforts they’ve put in themselves within the community and the feedback we got from that is being taken on board.”