New ‘Mini Vine’ community centre opens its doors in Peterborough

The centre, on 62 Bridge Street, was due to open on Friday (August 6) but was delayed slightly until Wednesday this week.

Now it is open, residents will be able to access a wide range of support, learning, leisure services and activities from the space, which will be open seven days a week.

Activities will be repeated weekly and new things to do in The Mini Vine will be added daily along with opportunities to:

- Take part in a school uniform swap (throughout the summer holidays). - Sign up to the Summer Reading challenge, browse books and join in children’s Storytime and Rhymetime

- Receive advice and information about next steps after GCSEs and A-levels. - Sign-up to leisure-learning courses

- Book onto activities and events as part of City Culture Peterborough’s Family Festival of Summer Fun

- Browse the work of local artists

- Secure tickets for the latest shows at the Key Theatre

- Get free career advice and guidance including information for unemployment and redundancy

Funded by City College Peterborough, The Mini Vine will also give businesses and partners an opportunity to work together for the benefit of everyone accessing its services. The community space will provide a sense of what the government Towns Fund Vine concept could be like.

Adults will be able to get free advice from the National Careers Service and information about employment and training opportunities in the health and care sector. Specialist advice will be on hand to improve health and well-being with demonstrations from diet and food portion control to exercising correctly.

A second opening phase in winter will provide additional services for people to access.

Pat Carrington, Executive Principal at City College Peterborough and CEO at City Culture Peterborough, said: “The Mini Vine is effectively a space for everyone. Our focus is for it to be a place where people of all ages and backgrounds come for information, advice, activity, learning and for their social wellbeing.

“We will be welcoming everyone from school leavers seeking guidance on their next steps to people wanting advice after finding themselves out of work because of the pandemic. Families can use the library and take part in activities and parents can take advantage of our school uniform exchange, which helps us to protect our environment as well as save money.

“The Mini Vine will be a welcoming, vibrant and creative space for all our visitors and our aim is to inspire and motivate everyone we meet, as well as showcase some of our city’s best culture and heritage activities, events and days out. Within a few months we’ll be able to utilise all of the space that New Look occupied and offer even more opportunities for communities to come together under one roof.”

For more information about The Mini Vine and how to get involved, email [email protected].