Construction starts at Coin Street neighbourhood centre

The £9.4 million mixed use development – which won planning permission two years ago – includes a family & children's centre [currently based in portable buildings at 99 Upper Ground], meeting and conference facilities, a learning and enterprise support centre, a community cafe, a permanent home for CSCB staff, and commercial retail/restaurant space.

Children from the family and children's centre help to get the work under way, under the watchful eye of director Guy Hanscombe

"This development is part of a wider social enterprise approach to ensuring that all those living or working in this part of London have access to the facilities and services they need," says Iain Tuckett, director of Coin Street Community Builders. "Last year we opened four outdoor sports pitches and, in September, we announced plans for a public swimming and indoor leisure centre adjacent to the National Theatre. Today we are starting the construction of a permanent home for our Coin Street family & children's centre, for our learning & enterprise support programme, and for our staff."

The Coin Street neighbourhood centre has been designed by a team led by Haworth Tompkins Architects and forms part of the fourth side of the award-winning Iroko Housing Co-operative development (also designed by Haworth Tompkins). The centre is scheduled to open in September 2007.

Haworth Tompkins' other work in SE1 includes the new Young Vic theatre in The Cut which opens this year.

More than £5 million of the cost of the development has been raised by Coin Street Community Builders, with the remainder coming from the Single Regeneration Budget, London Development Agency and Children's Centre/SureStart programmes via Lambeth and Southwark Early Years.

The main contractor is Rooff Ltd, whose recent local work includes the Siobhan Davies dance centre in St George's Road.