FED-UP residents of a cut-off housing estate fear the closure of their local community centre could prove its death knell, leaving kids to roam the streets “terrorising the place”.
The 3,000 people of Gamesley already have very limited resources, with the local pubs and cafes long shuttered, and council cost-cutting further stripping away services like mum and baby groups.
To make matters worse, the rural Derbyshire estate is completely cut off from the outside world because buses stop at 7.15pm, meaning those without a car can’t get in or out in the evening.
Daytime doesn’t fare much better, with no public transport servicing the local secondary school, which is three miles away in nearby Glossop.
It means children over the age of 11 are faced with an hour-long walk to school each day, coming back up a steep hill and braving the near-constant stormy weather.
Due to the estate's location in the High Peak, it receives more rain and snow than anywhere else in England.
The latest blow came in February when The Hangout Youth Club was forced to shut its doors due to Derbyshire County Council clamping down on costs.
The council reportedly needs to save £40million this financial year and told Helen Thornhill, who runs the centre, that she had six weeks to get their stuff out because it was being closed down.
In a fightback illustrating Gamesley's proud community spirit, residents have now rallied together and formed a plan to save the centre and the future of their children.
Helen, 52, said: "We will not let the community centre go without a fight. We are now going to give ourselves charitable status and raise funds so we can buy the centre for ourselves.
"We are hoping this will then give us the power to do more with the centre and give more back to the children and the community. We have a great space here that is underutilised.
"I was absolutely flabbergasted when I got a phone call out of the blue to say it would be closed. There was no consultation or engagement about the decision that was made by a council located 70 miles away from us."
Gamesley is built on a Roman Fort and was the chosen location for an overspill estate to rehouse people from Manchester slums in the 1960s.
Nestled within the beauty of the Peak District, there are 1,100 mainly council-owned pebble-dashed houses squeezed inside a circular ring road, Melandra Castle Road - named after the Fort.
It was identified as a "left behind neighbourhood" in a landmark 2018 report, meaning it has a lack of places to meet and poor connectivity to the wider economy.
With high levels of deprivation, locals describe feeling "trapped" in a situation with lack of job prospects and aspiration for the future.
Helen and others are currently in talks with council to turn their enterprise into a charitable organisation and do a community asset transfer to allow them to own and run the building.
It will reportedly cost about £70,000 to buy and upgrade the building.
It was originally built by locals in the 1960s when they paid £1 a brick to build their own social club.
However, they later ran into debt and the council came to the rescue by taking it over in the 80s, knocking it down and rebuilding it as a youth centre.
The centre has many rooms and great outdoor facilities including sporting areas and football pitches, which have sadly deteriorated due to funding cuts in the past few years.
Now it is just home to the Hangout Youth Club and a boxing club.
To donate visit crowdfunder.co.uk/p/the-hangout-club-gamesley-youth-club
Helen said: "It is beautiful here, the estate is set in wonderful surroundings, but this is not an affluent community who have come here for the quiet life to settle down and can afford cars.
"For many the isolation here cuts people off from necessary services and takes its toll on mental health.
"You have a community who cannot access work because there is no work in the community and there is no means to get out and get work.
"The biggest supermarket is out of town so a lot of people do their weekly shop at one of the two shops in Gamesley, which is incredibly expensive and limited in choice.
"Accessing healthcare and mental health is a nightmare because you get pushed from pillar to post between the Tameside, Greater Manchester and Derbyshire provisions, who each say the other is responsible.
"The estate is run by rural Derbyshire County Council when it could do with being under the provision of closer Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council for better support and more money."
The only facility left in the area is the community centre, which runs kids groups, provides health visitor sessions and has small teaching classes for children not at school.
Helen continued: "Removing the community centre will see an increase in anti-social behaviour and petty crime. We have around 80 kids on our books here. That’s 80 kids with somewhere to come and meet people and talk to people if they want to.
"The kids have free wi-fi and learn life skills like cooking and fun activities, we have a street artist comes in and works with them. It gets them out of their bedrooms and stops them causing destruction on the estate, from climbing on roofs and chucking bottles.
"We are not asking for Alton Towers here, or a cinema, we just want the community centre to stay open."
As of 2020, more than 225 British neighbourhoods have been identified as ‘left behind’ in a landmark study.
Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OSCI) combined data from the Index of Multiple Deprivation and the Community Needs Index to create the ranking system.
Researchers defined ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods as places that rank highly on the indices of multiple deprivation and lack of social infrastructure.
Social infrastructure was defined as places and spaces to meet, connectivity (physical and digital) and community engagement.
Places to meet included community, civic, educational and cultural assets close to the area.
Community engagement was measured by community and civic participation.
Connectivity revolves around key services, such as a strong local job market.
The multiple deprivation index measures deprivation in a relative area and then compares it to other deprived regions.
The majority of ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods tended to be post-industrial and coastal areas in the North and the Midlands.
Away from the centre, the whole of Gamesley appears to be struggling too.
One pub has been converted to a One Stop shop and the other overlooking the gap-toothed row of shops is derelict and attracts the locals kids who smash windows, set fires and climb on the low, flat roof.
The local nursery is sitting in ruins after the provision was moved into the local primary school in a cost-cutting move.
The beautiful greens surrounding the compact estate serves as a track for kids on motorbikes.
Dawn Stevenson, 55, is a special educational needs assistant and foster carer.
She moved to the estate when she was five-years-old and raised her four kids and seven grandchildren there.
Dawn said: "I love the community here and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. My children have grown up and done well so I can prove that can happen, but something needs to be done to keep that going.
"I have grandkids who have to walk to school each day because there is no bus to the high school in Glossop.
"There are no lockers in school so the kids don’t take big coats with them and they walk to school in their blazers in all kinds of weather, getting sopping wet in the rain and staying sopping wet at school.
"There aren’t even any facilities for the older generation, like my mum. At one point the old folk were hanging around outside the shops like a bunch of teenagers because they had nowhere to go.
Kids set fires and smashed windows at the derelict pub, Melandra Castle. That is exactly what will happen with an empty community centre
Matt Hartle
"The cafe, which was run by the local church, had to close due to ill health and now we’ve lost things there like the dementia group and Knit and Natter. It’s turned out nobody can take that over either because asbestos has been found there.
"And the pub can’t be taken over by any other business because it has to stay as a pub - which nobody wants."
One woman, who didn’t want to be named, told us she has problems with anxiety, a common problem on the estate.
She said: "I have two young children and I do love the people here, my family is here and I have support in that way but there is no mum and baby group here, which I really struggled with when they were babies. It was hard to feel stuck in your home with a newborn.
"It’s even harder to get out and go to places outside of Gamesley with the kids, buses being as bad as they are. Sometimes I feel a bit claustrophobic, like I’m totally trapped with no way of getting out.
"Yes it’s lovely that we have the great outdoors and fresh air but sometimes you just want to see and speak to somebody else who isn’t four-years-old."
One success story of Gamesley is dad-of-two Matt Hartle, 31, who took up boxing when he was a kid and used to go to the boxing nights at the community centre run by Steve Brady that are still going now.
He was about to turn pro two years ago when a hand injury stopped his career.
Instead, he started running fitness training sessions in his back garden and now has his own boxing and fitness gym, MH Fitness, just outside the estate.
Matt said: "I also run a men’s mental health group LETS (Lets Exercise, Talk and Support) and I really worry that the kids growing up in Gamesley today will end up there if the community centre was to close.
"Without the youth club the kids won’t have anything to do and that will cause all number of mental health problems. It will be carnage, the kids will be terrorising the place.
99 per cent of the community are honest hard working folk
Andy Catterall
"I grew up in Gamesley so I know what it’s like. We had more to do when I was a kid, we’d play on the arcade attached to the pub and we’d all get out and play but it’s not like that anymore, all the kids are at home on their computer and you need to work really hard to get them out.
"I have two daughters and I’m worried what will happen if it closes.
"There are already kids running around and climbing on roofs with nothing to do, hanging around the shops and smoking weed.
"They’ve set fires and smashed windows at the derelict pub, Melandra Castle. That is exactly what will happen with an empty community centre.
"I run kids groups here and we do boxing and fitness, doing my best to keep them off the streets. During the holidays the kids come and box and then we go for a chippy dinner. It’s good for them."
Andy Catterall, 49, came to Gamesley four years ago when he was about to lose his job in the pandemic and decided to jump off the corporate ladder into the world of fish and chips.
He came with a view of buying up all the fittings and fryer to take back with him but fell in love with the place.
Located on Gamesley’s only row of shops, he decided to keep it on and is still running the chippy today.
Andy said: "This is one of the best communities I have ever experienced. They welcomed me with open arms.
Business was easier for me when there was a café and a sun bed shop here, there was more footfall
Andy Catterall
"It is absolutely beautiful around here. Sometimes I'll stand outside with my cup of tea and just take in what’s around me.
"According to statistics it is one of the most deprived but I see a lot of hardworking people holding down a couple of jobs trying to make ends meet.
"It’s not cheap to live in Gamesley, the rent here is around £1,000 a month.
"When you’re paying that with one wage coming in, one part-time and a couple of kids it’s hard to get by.
"It’s such a shame to see businesses and amenities disappearing, business was easier for me when there was a cafe and a sun bed shop here, there was more footfall and more people nipping in for fish and chips.
"People would walk by after picking their kids up from nursery at lunch time and call in and that’s gone too.
"I just have to work hard at keeping the business open and customers coming in. People do come from further afield to this chippy because the fish and chips are good here.
"It’s not great having a derelict pub over the road, it would be nice if they’d let it be used for something else, it attracts kids who climb on the roof but I know who they are so I will tell them off and I’m on the phone to their parents.
"99 per cent of the community are honest hard working folk."
In response to the residents' claims, the Derbyshire County Council said it was working with local stakeholders to find a solution.
A spokesperson added: "Working with local communities across Derbyshire to help them to thrive is a key priority for us and Gamesley is no exception.
"We currently operate the Gamesley Community Centre building, with High Peak Borough Council owning the land it sits on, and while it is used by various community groups the council itself has not used it for many years.
"We have a duty to all our council tax paying residents to ensure we are using all our buildings and assets in the most effective and efficient way, and we are under a statutory obligation to let or sell surplus buildings to ensure we make the best of the resources we
have.
"We fully acknowledge the value and importance placed on the centre by local residents which is why we’ve been working with local groups and have proposed its transfer into community ownership. We believe this move would secure its future.
"Community groups are now working together to form a charity, and then develop a business plan to take on the running of the building. This is really positive and we have been supporting the groups to put together a business case for taking over the building as a Community Asset Transfer (CAT)."
The spokesperson added that there are currently two conventional bus services serving Gamesley which, as there is not enough demand for them to be run commercially, are funded by the council and Transport for Greater Manchester.
They said: "Both these services run from early in the morning (6.40am) Monday to Friday, with one running a service until 7.15pm including on a Saturday.
"There is also the Derbyshire Connect service which we fund, which residents can pre-book to get to the shops, bank etc or medical appointments."
"There are currently only three children attending Glossopdale School who are entitled to travelling assistance to Glossopdale School and none live in Gamesley.
"As so few students are entitled to travelling assistance to Glossopdale School funding is not available for a dedicated school bus service."
