LETTER: St Mary’s team are bowing out

The current management team was originally invited by Canon Phillip Dearden, nearly five years ago, to take on the task of running the centre, which at the time was seen by many in the town as a white elephant and the building was in serious danger of being simply boarded up.

As a community group, we were a little unsure how successful we might be, but we were very keen to make it work. Thanks to all the volunteer effort and the work of the management team, we have been able not only to keep the centre open, but to invest in maintaining the fabric of the building and most importantly we have more than doubled the community usage over these five years. The Centre is once again a viable and essential community resource.

We would like to thank all our supporters, our volunteers and particularly our users for the efforts everyone has made to ensure that St Mary’s Centre continues to play an important part in the life of the local community. We should also like to recognise the efforts of our caretaker, Mr Colin Wright, who has worked closely with us throughout most of this period and has played a key role in the task of looking after the needs of the centre users.

It is with much regret that the current management team were unable to take on the ownership and long-term running of the centre, but we hope that the new management team will be able to build on the results achieved so far and will continue to expand the usage and provide a home to the many organisations and community activities that continue to take place at the centre.

We wish them and the St Mary’s Centre a long and busy future.

RICHARD JACKSON, BRENDA JONES, JOHN WILKINSON, DON ROWBOTTOM, LESLEY HAWORTH, SANDRA SOWERBUTTS, TERRY TILL,

The management team of the Clitheroe Centre Trust