A LANDMARK Greenfield building is ready to be brought back to life – and boost the communities around it.
For years, the former Co-Operative stood unused after being a store facility for the neighbouring Robert Scott and Sons factory at Oak View Mills.
But it will soon become a hub of activity as a boxing club and community interest company (CIC) that specialises in sparing the imagination of adults and children set to move in.
And Saddleworth Independent was given a guided tour of the Manchester Road building, once the headquarters of the society formed in 1856, and the work that has gone into it – huge cobwebs and everything.
“It was sitting here doing absolutely nothing at all and we’d built a school a few years ago,” said Alastair Scott, sale director at the firm.
“So we thought, ‘We’ve got extra space, we’re not actually using it anymore, we need the impetus to actually do it up to stop it falling down.’
“And while we were renovating it, we thought, ‘Well are there any local people, any local companies that might benefit from us renting it out cheaply to them?’
Phantasmagoria, the Ashton-under-Lyne based ‘arts hub with a difference’ will take the ground floor.
And it believes its work can really make a difference as it partners with councils, the NHS, hiusing associations and community groups, saying: “We believe if you create an amazing inspiring environment for people to be part of it will inspire creativity and increase their sense of self worth.
“Phantasmagoria is run by artists and although our aims are therapeutic our aim is not to be therapists.
“We aim to build skills and confidence by working with people on collaborative high quality art works to feel better about themselves and embark on new life projects like employment, volunteering and education.
“Using the arts, Phantasmagoria provides an evidence-based approach to tackling social isolation, poor mental health and low confidence.”
Upstairs will be the new home of Mossley’s YFG Amateur Boxing Club – and they may be there sooner than you think as Alastair revealed a hoped-for date of May 4.
“They’d lost their previous gym that they worked from,” he added. “They don’t have a permanent home.
“They worked out of the gym, lost their place and actually rang me.
“Dave, who runs the boxing club, said, ‘We haven’t got anywhere we could rent.’ I replied, ‘Well funnily enough, that’s good timing’
“And it’s important, it’s used by a community in every way.
“We wanted to benefit community groups rather than just making some more money out of renting it to a solicitor’s office or something like that – nothing against solicitor’s offices!
“We don’t need to make any income out of it, so it can just wipe its feet and they can pay enough rent just to cover the upkeep of it.”
Look around the Victorian building and it is hard to believe work on transforming it only started in January.
Original cornices and the ceiling are still visible, complete with cobwebs, but big changes have taken place.
Where the stairs are now was the loading bay, while internal changes have been huge. There will not be too many external ones, however.
And as Alistair detailed, a first look at what they had to work on highlighted the size of the task.
Now all it needs is finishing off and fitting out, as local contractors have performed the transformation – Alastair knows a boxing ring is ready to go upstairs as he is storing it!
He told Saddleworth Independent: “It was very shabby indeed.
“Plaster falling off the walls, plaster falling off the ceiling. We had used it for storage for a long time but for 10 years it hadn’t really done anything at all.
“It’s a well-built building, the Edwardians knew how to build stuff but it needed looking after properly.
“We’ve got a very good team of local builders who’ve done an excellent job and using local firms was important.
“We support local businesses wherever we can.
“We’ve had quite a lot of people over the years just say, ‘Are you doing anything with it, can we rent it out?’ And we’ve never really got past, ‘No, we’re not sure what we’re doing with it. So we might get back to you, we might not.’
“As it ended up, we didn’t, it just sat here but it was in one of those board meeting days when we decided, ‘Yeah, it’s about time we do something with it.’
“Both Phantasmagoria and YFG seemed like appropriate community good causes that prompted us to do something.
“And hopefully they can both have a great impact on the communities around the area. If we can help with that, then why not?”
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