Welcome to our new pad

Voluntary organisations of all kinds are used to working their lives out in sub-standard accommodation.  Buildings originally designed – or at least intended – for quite a different purpose; shared spaces; former living rooms or even kitchens; rooms with no storage; buildings in the wrong place; those which are uninviting.

We continue to use them often because there is no alternative option, funds are short, donated by well-meaning folk who have our interests at heart but who recognise that most major projects will be difficult to achieve.  

Difficult maybe, but not impossible.  Two organisations in the same vicinity were searching for similar solutions, and the result is the delightful little building opened on Sunday 22nd July at Highfield Park, with a green ribbon obligingly cut by Mayor Rosemary Farmer.

Highfield Park Trust had headquartered in the nearby West Lodge, Hill End Lane, from the start of its tenure two decades ago.  OK, so you could run a typical small office from the front living room, and they have, but it wasn't laid out to satisfy the wish of the Trust to invite visitors, show off what was being achieved in the park or hosting functions.

Thanks to the new visitor centre, the Trust can now do all of those things, and probably more.  Today was also a red letter day for Colney Heath Parish Council, because it too was moving into a new home, in the same building.

There is reason enough at any time to visit the delightful Highfield, on the twin sites of the former Hill End and Cell Barnes hospitals. It possesses acres of beautiful and expansive parkland, woods, orchards and ponds.  From today one more attraction can be added to that list – a new visitor centre.