"It's a lifeline for people": Coffee morning members unhappy after Sheffield community centre left to "ruin"
“It means so much but nobody seems to bother to help”
Members of a coffee morning group described as a “lifeline” for many are upset at the condition of their council-run community centre where they meet.
Carpenter Gardens community centre is located just off Hollybank Road, Intake, and is an area mostly populated by “elderly and disabled people”.
Sue Underhay, aged 77, has lived there for 13 years, and says coffee mornings, which take place every Tuesday, have become “a lifeline to a lot of people”.
But for over a month now, they have not gone ahead, because floor tiles in the centre were taken up, with the floor left covered in cardboard until they were replaced.
It was felt it was a trip hazard for some, so the group was cancelled.
Sue said: “No one knew anything about the tiles being taken up. They did try and place sheets of cardboard over the missing tiles but they still deemed it unsafe for the elderly people to enter.”
Sue said the centre is “important to people” and a place where “everybody looks after everybody” but it is falling to “rack and ruin”.
She said: “It’s a community centre that means so much but nobody seems to bother to help.
“We’ve got a lovely little estate - everybody looks after each other and the council are just letting it go to rack and ruin.”
Sue says there are heating issues and there have also been problems with rats.
She said: “There’s no heating sometimes, it keeps breaking and we’ve had to buy our own radiators - there has also been rats running around.
“They just don’t care.”
A lot of elderly people in the area live on their own, which is why Sue emphasised how important community groups are to help combat loneliness.
She said: “A lady who lived across the road from me, she always used to knock on the door and offered me cake. She really just wanted me to ask her to come in for a cup of coffee to keep her company.”
Pat Whitaker, 87, who also helps run the coffee mornings, shared the same frustration over the condition of the centre and said: “The boilers don’t work and elderly people get colder than young people.”
The first coffee morning in over a month should take place on Tuesday, October 20 after someone is due to check the tiles on Monday, October 19.
Sheffield City Council has been contacted.