"Once upon a time there was a village in need of hirable rooms.

Once upon a time there was this empty field.

Once upon a time an idea was formed.

But twice upon a time the dream was built".

 

The H&D Community Association having been offered some unused wasteland, asked the nice people at

Esso if they could use the 'Lesserjac' prefabricated / modular building that Esso no longer required.

The nice people said "yes" and "we'll find someone to transport it to the promised land".

The H&D.C.A suggested that Hythe would be a more suitable location.

 

This is the brief and simplified history of the Hythe & Dibden Community Centre - Mark 1 and Mark 2

For the history of the H&D Community Association see the link at the bottom of the page.

 

The longer story:

Since the H&D.C.A's formation in 1974, it had been pushing for a Community Centre. It's first course of action was to look for existing buildings that could be converted for use. The options were limited but included taking over the "Old Court House", running the H&D Parish Hall, using the "Wildground School annex" and a few other places. The Association was already hiring from the Waterside Council of Community Services (WCCS) and the Hythe & Dibden Parish Council (who at the time was still just Dibden Parish Council) facilities like the Waterside Activities Centre and West Shore house.

But as the population increased more was needed.

 

The first success was gaining an office and hirable rooms at the "Old Court House" in 1978. This gave the Association a headquarters instead of working out of various committee members homes. They had to share the building with the W.C.C.S, the C.A.B and a security company but for four years this former police station and jail was home.

 

When in 1982 the Old Court House, having used up it's 99 year ground lease and due to demolition, became unavailable, the H&D.C.A needed to look for fresh accommodation. The Association's Community Centre Steering Committee had, in these years, been busy badgering local authorities for alternative available buildings or locations to build.

For a while it looked like the "Wildground School Annex" on Lunedale Road (now known as the Dibden Purlieu Community Hall) would be of use but it was deemed too small and too far out of the population centre to be ideal - as Dibden Purlieu and Hythe were still  separate villages.

But then in Autumn 1982 Esso Petroleum Company - a major employer along the Waterside - offered two unwanted modular buildings for community use. These buildings were prefabricated and essentially "flatpack" buildings made by Lesser Building Systems and apparently only four years old (but probably older). These buildings could be moved to almost any location on the back of a lorry and then assembled.

 

This offer was welcomed and the larger building on offer was chosen. The smaller building was destined to be brought by the Fawley Parish Council and placed in Gang Warily where it became the "Gang Warily Scout and Guide headquarters" (This building will be celebrating it's fortieth year in operation sometime around 2024).

 

Now the matter of where to put it arose!

 

In the "Hythe plan" formalised a year or two earlier provision was made for land for a Community Centre in the field formerly owned by Whitbread that sat between Hythe School and the Jones Lane Car Park. The neighbouring fields would soon be developed into the Ewart Court Housing Estate and the Homeborough House site.

 

Planning permission was therefore sort and gained to house a "temporary" Community Centre for a five year period starting Dec 1982. Planning Reference number: 23138

 

So in 1983, nine years after the official formation of the H&D.C.A, the 15 modules of the "lesserjac" building were loaded onto lorries at the Esso site and transported to Hythe. Only 14 arrived at the Jone's Lane site as one "fell off" the lorry. This wasn't a problem as there was only room on site for 14 any way. It is thought that the "lost module" would have belonged in the future Hall 2.

In preparation for the buildings arrival, large concrete supports were poured, two springs "capped" and the land mostly leveled.

 

This is what it looked like just prior to it's opening... And what it looked like when it opened in  June 1984.

In the time between the two photos some extra things were added:

 Fire doors, a disabled ramp, pavement, some red paint, a name plaque and it's own car park for twenty cars.

From the very start it received no public funding what-so-ever which allowed the H&D.C.A to be independent and non-political - A state which continues to this day.

Over the next twenty years the Community Centre would gain a Registrar's office, a Community Car service, a Career's Advice Drop- in Service, a W.I market, a pre-school, a small fleet of hirable mini-buses and quite a few small groups divided between "Commercial" (businesses), "Membership" (local groups) and "Associated" (the gray area in between).

This is it's layout when it arrived in 1983.

And this is it's layout between 1986 and 2002. The main developments was that the office was enlarged into Room C and Room A straightened.

So the Community Centre consisted of: Two nearly identical sized halls (Halls 1 and 2), two single rooms (Rooms D1,D2), a twin room (Room B) and a double (Room A), plus the office, kitchen, small refreshments area, store rooms and the toilets.

Hall 1 and 2 - were later named after Mr Ewart and Mr Wilson, local persons of note.

Over the next two decades dozens of plans for a purpose built building began to be drawn up and after full consultation with all existing (and some potential) users, a replacement Community Centre layout started to take shape that would hopefully fulfill the requirements for the community for many years to come.

The consensus to all the research conducted over the previous twenty years was that in the twenty first century groups would want more space to meet. This lead to the Community Centre needing bigger rooms than before with the old "Room A" being the template. This limited the number of rooms the building could have and so limited the number of groups who could concurrently meet. This was solved by having a second floor.

One of the other much needed requests was better sound proofing - The "pre-fab" Community Centre had thin wooden walls.

So in 2002,with part funding from the National Lottery and Dibden Allotments, The Community Association got what it'd worked hard for: a purpose built new Community Centre.

Well almost.

The 'part funding' provided by the National Lottery was reduced mid design and the promise that if a two phase plan was submitted instead of the single "build all at the same time" plan, that the second phase would receive funding in the following year.

The two phase plan was therefore submitted and building for the first phase begun.

The funding for "Phase 2" however has never been granted.

This has left the Community Centre without it's second custom built hall but with it's original "Wilson" hall stuck to the side.

 

            This is what the Community Centre (Mark 2) looked like a month before it was finished and what it looked like on the official opening.

The current building was opened on the 8th of February 2003 and surprised people by having two floors and a lift!

This is it's layout. It includes the ground floor, the first floor and the old building with Room A being renamed as Room G and half of Room B being renamed as Room H. The renaming was done because Hall 2 can be divided into two rooms called Room A and Room B. These rooms (plus the hall) are still "temporary" until Phase 2 is funded.

The H&D Community Centre (Mark 2) consists of: Two nearly identical sized halls (Halls 1 and 2), two single rooms (Rooms C & D), a single with en suite toilet (Room E) and a small Room (Room F), plus the office, kitchen, refreshments area, store rooms and the toilets.

Over the years groups have come and groups have gone. The W.I market dissolved at the turn of the Millennium, the Registrar's Service was stopped due to Hampshire County Council cuts in 2009, careers advice is catered for by several organisations and our fleet of minibuses were finally sold off in 2019. In March 2020 we, like every other community centre in England, closed due to the Covid 19 pandemic except for medical and educational hirings. Once "lockdown" ended, we reopened and resumed hiring rooms out to local groups and businesses.

This is what it looked like in 2016. The old hall (called Hall 1) is just visible on the right.

And the rear as seen from the public carpark.

                  Further history of the H&DC.A can be found here:     A list of some of our users can be found here:                             

(C) Copyright H&D Community Association. 2024