CCTV, football cages, market stalls - where Mansfield is putting its £1.5m from the Government
New CCTV, park football cages and market stall improvements are among the projects that Mansfield Council has agreed to provide – after the Government gave it £1.5m for community projects.
The town and its surrounding areas were awarded the boost from the current Labour administration’s Pride in Place Impact Fund, which saw local authorities apply for a slice of £150m designed to ‘help to rebuild community pride in their local area’.
The council found out it would be getting the money in October last year and in February, closed an application process in which local businesses and organisations were encouraged to bid for a share of the cash.
On July 3, council chief executive James Biddlestone approved funding for 19 separate projects which were successful in their application – with 46 having applied in total.
Subject to further discussion, agreement, and the signing of contracts and documents, the money will be available very soon.
And it won’t be long at all before the public can expect to see the fruits of the investment – with all projects required to be completed by the end of March next year.
Here’s the full list:
The Shed
The Shed, formerly known as the Adam Eastwood building, is a community space in an old warehouse in Warsop.
Warsop Parish Council has been awarded £70,000 to transform it into a ‘a safe, welcoming and fully accessible community hub’.
The money will pay for a new multi-sports indoor floor and an indoor climbing wall.
The Hub
Mansfield’s youth centre The Hub on Yorke Street only opened in November last year, in the premises of an old gym.
Described as ‘a welcoming community hub for disadvantaged young people aged 16-26’, it is designed to help unemployed teens and adults by connecting them with activities, opportunities and support.
Run by the Inspire & Achieve Foundation, the project is set to get £80,000, which will help pay for disability access, a kitchen where attendees can practice cooking and life skills, new classrooms, an IT suite with computers and additional mentoring rooms.
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army building on Victoria Street will also benefit from £80,000.
It will be used to build a soft play area for children and to open a new cafe, as well as to renovate the kitchen.
The aim is to ‘improve accessibility and community use’.
Mansfield Wildlife Rescue
Mansfield Wildlife Rescue is a charity that looks after injured or stranded wild animals and birds.
Based in Pleasley Vale, it will get £38,900, which will be used to help fund two new additional units at its headquarters – one for the treatment and rehabilitation of wildlife and the other a classroom-type environment for when schools come to visit.
Stacey Road Community Centre
Stacey Road Community Centre, run by the community interest company Volunteer It Yourself, is one of two proposed assets set to be ‘reinvigorated and transformed’ with £50,000 from the fund.
The company told the council in its application that it wanted to put the money towards facilities that need ‘urgent improvement works in the most deprived areas of Mansfield’.
Berry Hill Park bandstand
Berry Hill Park’s bandstand is the other asset that Volunteer It Yourself wants to give a makeover to with the £50,000 cash.
The rest of Berry Hill Park was recently subject to a £3.2m investment, which was spent on a new adventure play area and cafe.
Warsop Town Hall
Warsop Town Hall was taken over by Lifespring Pentecostal Church in 2023 after Warsop Council admitted it was struggling financially to kep it open.
The church said it wanted to turn it into a community hub, and last month, it started renovations and repairs.
Mansfield Council has agreed the project can have £50,000 towards ‘redesign and development’.
The money will go towards changing the interior layout of the building, new accessible toilets, a lift, LED lighting and automatic doors.
Mansfield Community Voluntary Service (CVS)
Mansfield CVS, a not-for-profit which gives out money to other organisations, will get £100,000 of the money.
They plan to spend it on a rolling programme of grants for ‘hard-to-reach communities’, with all the cash handed out by December this year.
Barrowhill Walk Community Centre
Mansfield Council will keep £200,000 of the money for itself in order to facilitate the reopening of a disused community centre on Barrowhill Walk, on the Oak Tree Lane estate on the east side of the town.
The plan is for it to host “community activities and events” and be available for use by various service providers.
New CCTV camera in the town centre
A £25,000 cheque will go towards a new CCTV camera in Mansfield town centre – although the location of it has not been disclosed.
It will be able to record 24/7 and leaders hope it will ‘reduce crime and reassure the community relating to public safety’.
Three new murals in the town centre
A further £60,000 will be spent by the council directly on three new murals in three town centre locations, as part of a pilot for a ‘town centre art trail’.
Market stalls in the town centre
Big news for Mansfield’s market – £60,000 has been allocated to ‘significantly improve market stall infrastructure’ – probably meaning the stalls themselves.
Mansfield is already hoping to spend £2m on regenerating the market place as part of a new proposal for a ‘streetscaping’ project, which is currently going through the planning application process.
Improvements touted within that include a ‘town garden’ featuring trees and a new water feature, an upgraded stone surface, and improved lighting, seating and street furniture.
This project will work in tandem with that.
Inclusive community spaces at Four Seasons shopping centre
A small £10,000 sum will go towards a pilot of the creation of ‘inclusive sensory aware community spaces’ within the Four Seasons shopping centre – designed for those with autism and other neurodivergent people.
Further details are likely to be announced.
Shop front painting
Another £10,000 will go towards ‘minor repairs and paintings’ to shops in and around the marketplace – again complementing the ‘streetscaping’ scheme.
Ladybrook Park
Ladybrook Park will get a new ‘multi-use games area’ worth £100,000, paid for and facilitated by Mansfield Council in conjunction with the Ladybrook Friends group.
This is likely to mean a new hard-court ‘cage’ for football and basketball, primarily for use by teenagers after the council said it wanted to target a ‘deprived neighbourhood’.
Peafield Park
Peafield Park in Mansfield Woodhouse is an award-winning park featuring toddler and junior play areas, a multisport pitch, a skate park, a bike track, a wildflower meadow, trails, a woodland area, an ‘all-access path’ and a sensory garden.
The council will put £100,000 towards enhancing the play equipment on the park, making it ‘attractive to all ages and stages of development, especially SEND children with additional needs’.
The Carrs
The Carrs – off the A60 between Warsop and Church Warsop – is a large nature reserve which also features recreational and play areas.
A total of £90,000 has been allocated to enhance the children’s play area by adding specialist equipment for children with limited mobility, as well as enhancing facilities for children in their early teens and providing more space for families and ‘social interaction’.
Again, Mansfield Council, which manages it, will take care of the job.
Manor Park
The remaining allocations are all going towards parks, with Manor Park, in Mansfield Woodhouse, afforded another £100,000 for enhancements to the children’s play area – similar to what will go on at The Carrs.
The main goal is to ‘strengthen and formalise wheelchair-friendly play provision’, which council documents say is in response to “community demand”.
Oak Tree open space
The open space on the Oak Tree estate, next to the community centre on Barrowhill Walk, will receive £100,000 worth of enhancements, again focused around the provision of inclusive, accessible equipment for children with limited mobility and facilities for children in the early teens, which the council says is currently ‘lacking’ there.
Pencil Park
The final allocation is to Pencil Park in Warsop, with a total of £60,000 to spend.
Coun David Hughes (Lab), who represents the Netherfield ward within which the park falls, referenced a multi-use games area when he publicised the news about the successful bid for the money in May.
In total, the 19 allocations total £1,383,900 – with £668,900 going to community spaces, £165,000 to high street and town centre improvements and £600,000 to parks and open spaces.
It leaves just more than £116,000 remaining of the £1.5m pot.
The council will retain that money as a ‘residual budget’, in the case extra money is needed to bring projects with the potential to deliver ‘significant community benefit’ forward.
Andy Abrahams (Lab), executive mayor, said: “It is amazing how far £1.5m goes in bringing a series of tangible and meaningful improvements to this district.
“Some of this funding, once approved, will enable us to do the kind of projects which come under a ‘nice to do’ heading but which local authorities everywhere rarely have had the spare cash available to carry out, such as upgrades to play areas.
“It is these kinds of neighbourhood enhancements that can really improve people’s quality of life.”