Havant Citizens Advice Bureau opens in Meridian Shopping Centre after flooding delays

The community support service, previously housed in the Leigh Park Community Centre and libraries across the area during building works, can now be found on the top floor of the Meridian Shopping Centre.

A £400,000 investment has seen the advice bureau double in size and take on more than four new members of staff.

The new facility was close to finished earlier in the year – but its opening was delayed when a catastrophic sprinkler failure flooded the whole unit in March.

Havant Citizens Advice Bureau chief executive Jon Stuart said: ‘The building was 95 per cent complete in March. It took four months to dry out.’

Rob Fryer, the shopping centre’s manager, added: ‘I couldn’t tell you how many thousands of gallons of water came out. But the contractors doing the work responded quickly.

‘It’s taken a number of months to get where we are now.’

Now the team is looking forward to welcoming people to their new facilities, according to their chief executive.

Jon said: ‘We have been here since the 60s – we are very well established within the community. We were at the Leigh Park community centre, but that was really cramped.

‘We needed a bigger, brighter, better building to support the community – and we’ve got one today.’

It comes as community groups across the area have been expressing concern about people feeling the squeeze from benefit cuts, furlough ending, and rising bills.

Jon added: ‘The aim is very much to get hold of community problems as soon as possible – and those problems run so much deeper because of Covid-19.

‘A lot of problems have got a lot worse.

‘In-person meetings have been down during Covid-19, but we have seen an increase in the number of telephone and online contact.’

Now Jon is hoping to host community groups and experts such as solicitors who can assist those in need.

He said: ‘We’re looking for partners to join us so rather than send people on, they are working with us.’

Shopping centre boss Rob said the unit had been vacant for a number of years, and he hoped the new Citizen Advice Bureau would prove to be another useful service available for customers in the shopping centre, which has seen not seen footfall recover to pre-pandemic levels.

He said: ‘We are inline with rest of the country – but the rest of the country is seeing a 20 to 30 per cent fall in footfall compared with 2019. Customers who do come out are spending more, but they are not coming out as often.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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