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Work on the new Southborough Community Hub is nearing completion, with construction due to finish within two weeks.
The £10million project in Tunbridge Wells is providing a hall with a stage, community rooms, GP surgery, library, shop, football pavilion and council offices on the site of the former town council offices and the Royal Victoria Hall in London Road, which was demolished in 2017.
It is a joint venture funded by Southborough Town Council, Kent County Council and Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, with the NHS chipping in with a £4.2m grant for the new surgery.
The project also received a grant of £500,000 from the Football Foundation towards the construction of a new pavilion with Tunbridge Wells Youth Football Club being granted a long lease on the premises.
The club has itself raised £90,000 to fit out the building.
The new pavilion will provide four large changing rooms, an officials' changing room, a training room and a large function area with views out over the fields.
Mike Hill, KCC’s cabinet member for community and regulatory services, who is also chairman of the Hub Project Board, said: “I am delighted to see that this has almost reached completion.
“It is the result of an enormous amount of hard work, not just in the construction itself, but in the preparation and planning which preceded it.
"These much-needed facilities, including a new library, are getting closer by the day.”
Carol Mackonochie, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council’s cabinet member for communities and wellbeing who is also a member of the Hub Project Board, said: “It is exciting to see this important and impressive project almost completed. It will be a great place for all ages to meet up and enjoy and should form an integral part of the Southborough community.”
Southborough Town Cllr Nick Blackwell, another board member, said: “Southborough Town Council is extremely pleased to able to help deliver the new home for Tunbridge Wells Youth FC. This will be an excellent base for the club to grow and develop, with generous spaces, up-to-date facilities and a clubhouse bar with fantastic views over our playing fields.”
