Guests celebrate housing development’s new community hub near St Catherine’s Hospice in Pease Pottage

The Woodgate Hub is next to St Catherine’s Hospice in Grace Holland Avenue at Thakeham’s Woodgate development.

The café and hub has been open since June but its celebration took place on Thursday, September 5, with visitors enjoying drinks and cake while celebrating what it has to offer.

Café and hub manager Emma Law said: “It’s incredible, it’s lovely and it’s got a real buzz.”

She said the hub raises funds for St Catherine’s Hospice with all profits from the café and rented rooms going to the charity.

Emma said: “We’ve got a lot of regular groups that come in. These include toddler dance classes, ballet, sensory groups, yoga and pilates. It’s a real mix.”

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The event began with a speech by chief executive of St Catherine’s Hospice Giles Tomsett who thanked Thakeham for gifting the hub to them. Visit thakeham.com.

He said: “Today is the culmination of a nine-year story of working together with Thakeham and Abri (housing association) to deliver this facility for the community.”

He said: “We were gifted five acres of land just across the way and Rob (Boughton, CEO of Thakeham) had the vision and the imagination to understand that this community needed a community room, a shop and a cafe. When he spoke to me about his vision I never imagined what we’d get is this magnificent building and so close to our facility.”

Thakeham CEO Rob Boughton then explained it was nine years ago they talked about the hospice being part of the community. Thakeham, working in partnership with Abri on the development, decided to give St Catherine’s ‘the prime plot’ of the development next to the green.

Rob said the cafe is always ‘bustling’ and thanked St Catherine’s Hospice for creating the community within the hub. A delighted Emma Law was then invited to unveil a plaque announcing the opening of the hub.

Thakeham said it has an ongoing partnership with St Catherine’s Hospice and said the Plunkett Foundation also supports the hub. The company said its Woodgate development ‘sets a precedent’ for all of its future housing developments too because it aligns with the new government’s housebuilding vision.

Speaking to this newspaper, Rob Boughton said: “Obviously this was designed before the current government had that vision.”

He said: “But what’s really interesting is it does adhere to the same values the government is now looking at, and that is sustainable communities. It’s a place and it’s a community that has a heart. Rather than just a field of houses, what we’ve got here is a central feature, a village green, which people use. Arranged around that village green we’ve got the cafe and the shop and the community rooms here and we’ve got a school the other end.”

Rob said Thakeham felt that they could create a ‘good development’ and community by looking at what people really need. He said: “For us, community creation is about delivering infrastructure. It’s about making sure it’s got the schools, it’s got the healthcare facilities, it’s got the shops, the cafés where people interact with it and where they live their lives properly.”