Building plans for children’s centre

Building plans for children’s centre 9/4/14

Barra Children’s Centre (BCC) has been successful in securing £176,799 of lottery funding to build a garden room extension.

The expanded facility which will be used by children in Castlebay Nursery for community play and exercise sessions, music classes and children’s ceilidhs.

The extension will also provide a permanent base for activities delivered in partnership with NHS Western Isles including health visitor drop in sessions and workshops.

A spokesperson said: “We have a busy but exciting time ahead off us. The extension will give pre-school children increased space to run about indoors throughout the winter and enable us to run our increasingly popular afternoon pre-school play sessions indoors and out on a weekly basis.

“It will also ensure that the wider community makes more use of facilities at BCC with activities like chair yoga and ante-natal exercise.

“BCC would like to thank Seafarers UK, our local community councils and ward councillors who helped us to meet our 5% contribution to the project costs, along with local fundraising and donations.”

The tender for the construction will go out locally on April 21 with building work over the summer.

Barra Children’s Centre is a voluntary organisation providing a range of facilities and services to children and the families of pre-school children on Barra and Vatersay.

It leases accommodation to the Comhairle for Castlebay School’s English and Gaelic language nursery classes.