RESIDENTS in Netherthird got together last week to celebrate the official takeover of the area's community centre.
The Netherthird Initiative for Community Empowerment (NICE) team have operated from the centre since 2016, and have been planning a full takeover of the facilitysince 2021.
In that time, NICE has become a group providing lifelines for many people in the community, including a safe space with mental health rooms, its community larder, and offering a relaxing café for people to go and have a chat.
NICE built and opened an extension to the existing centre in 2022, before approaching East Ayrshire Council with a view to buying the rest of the property.
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This meant the group's only option was to purchase the building, which East Ayrshire Council agreed to.
Describing some of the process, Netherthird Community Trust treasurer David Perriman, who was named earlier this year as Cumnock Citizen of the Year for 2023, said: "We first started talking about the centre purchase in 2021 and we gently poked the council to get the lay of the land, by which time we found that they were quite willing to sell.
"So we approached the Scottish Land Fund and submitted our stage one application on the June 16, 2021, and that was approved in August 2021.
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"We then submitted the stage two application in November 2021 and the rest was negotiating and fine tuning.
"Eventually, stage two was approved in March 2023, but that wasn’t the end of it.
"The legal people now had to get involved to make sure we had all the Ts crossed in the I’s dotted, the purchase was completed on March 6 2024.
"Here we are today as the new owners of the centre, on behalf of the Netherthird community, so it’s onwards and upwards from here on in."
Maggi Campbell, NICE chairperson, opened the event by thanking everybody who was there and who had helped in the purchase of the building.
Particular thanks was given to East Ayrshire Council for allowing NICE to purchase the building, and the Scottish Land Fund for providing the funds for doing so.
David added: "Now that we own the building we have opened up greater funding opportunities to help keep the centre going in the future.
"To say that the process was easy would be a distortion of the truth, but perseverance, and the help provided by the organisations involved, meant we got there in the end.
"The benefits of the centre to the local community are manifold. It provides meeting rooms, a dance studio, a small conference room and counselling lounge, as well as the café and charity shop, which are well used by various groups and organisations and help to keep the community centre running."
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