Loanhead Community Learning Centre

About Loanhead Community Learning Centre

A Brief History

The Loanhead Community Learning Centre (LCLC) is a Scottish charity (SCO 13692) established in 1977 to promote educational, social welfare and recreational opportunities for the population of Loanhead and the nearby villages. Our mission is:

"... to deliver a high quality community centre environment and associated management service focused firmly on the needs of families, young people and children in Loanhead and satellite villages. The Association will also support and maximise the role of volunteers in the Centre, and pro-actively ensure marginalized groups (i.e. disabled people, people on low incomes and single parent families) have parity of access to the Centre and its service."

A group of local people manage the community centre which was successful in gaining grant funding to undertake an extensive renovation of our building, including the establishment of a computer suite, and a community cafe. The Centre is currently used by 1,034 people per week, and it is anticipated that usage will continue to increase. Groups using the Centre include, Breakfast Club, After School Club, Youth Clubs (5 nights per week), a Mental Health group, a Special Needs Group, a Social History Group, Parent and Toddler groups, Computer Training, Spanish classes, Dance classes and Football training. The Centre covers the areas of Loanhead, and the surrounding semi-rural areas of Roslin, Bilston, Straiton and Pentland Park (trailer park) in East Central Scotland.

The need for our service

As the need for affordable housing continues to grow in the Lothians and Borders, large areas of once rural land is being built upon. However, transport links and locally accessible amenities are left behind and people can and do feel increasingly isolated in new housing schemes, the facilities that the centre offers is paramount as with no central point to access, this encourages people to come together and give them a sense of identity within their new community. LCLC has been successful in providing this focal point.

Our service users come from all backgrounds and we attempt to offer a service to each and every one regardless of social status. A proportion are single parents who are largely reliant on state benefits. They suffer from low self-esteem and low self-confidence. They lack essential core skills such as literacy, numeracy and basic knowledge of IT. Lifestyles are often chaotic and they frequently display a lack of motivation. Prior to the centre being made available our users found it very difficult to present confidently to the outside world and consequently had strong feelings of isolation. There is a growing section of our community who have multiple problems, low incomes, alcohol and substance misuse, and compounded with difficulties obtaining low cost childcare, which are exacerbated by the erosion of extended family support mechanisms. Taken together these factors present considerable impediments to having basic social interaction skills.

As there is no secondary school in Loanhead the centre is the only place in Loanhead where youths can come together to interact and this in turn keeps them off the streets and out of harms way, therefore we play a vital role in being a focal point for the youth which has led to our youth clubs being well attended and gives them the opportunity to express their identities in a safe and welcoming environment. In Midlothian the continuation rates into higher education are amongst the lowest in Scotland along with a high rate of teenage pregnancies. Due to these startling figures it makes our work and development of the work we carry all the more important and vital. Our service users require extensive guidance and training opportunities that are easily accessible to them in a familiar environment. It is important that we continue to function as a "one stop shop" which can deliver a whole range of activities from training courses to a healthy affordable snack in our community café. A number of our youths are currently volunteers helping out in the coffee bar and with the younger youth clubs, this in turn has led to a strong sense of ownership over the centre. This in turn has led them to respect the facilities offered in the centre and show respect to others with increased participation from their peers. We have also been successful in obtaining funding to run a "Youth Forum" giving the members of the clubs the opportunity to have a say in the running of their centre.

The Future

Funding for the Centre's new Log Cabin Project is falling into place. We hope that this will be finalised during the opening months of 2010 with the build starting in the Spring for an October 2010 opening. Some of the facilities that this will give us include:

If you wish to see the plans and discuss the facilities that will be on offer please don't hesitate to give us a call or drop by for a chat.

© 2010 Loanhead Community Learning Centre
Loanhead Community Learning Centre (LCLC) is a Scottish charity (SCO 13692)