Winter pressures may mean more help needed for Cambridgeshire hub
Haddenham Social Hub has been running throughout the summer
A community service volunteer in Cambridgeshire has been telling us it may need more money to run if demand rises this winter.
Haddenham Social Hub has been running throughout the year and relies on both county council funding and help from local fundraising efforts, including the village beer festival, to keep it running.
Formerly known as a warm hub, it currently serves an average of 60 to 70 visitors a week and has nine core volunteers, with more helping where necessary.
Rachel Dennis is the lead volunteer at Haddenham Social Hub:
"We're open to everyone and everyone is welcome, whether they're unable to afford their heating or just wanting to meet people," she said.
"Over the time it was open, it was already becoming a social hub, not just about the heating anymore but becoming part of a community space where people could feel involved.
"It's a shame things like this haven't happened before; in this village years ago, everybody knew each other and help in some way, and that is what's lacking in a lot of areas."
Who runs the community hubs?
Last winter Haddenham Social Hub, which has been running through the summer months due to increased demand, was operating as a warm hub.
The service is coordinated by the Cambridgeshire ACRE charity, which in its warm hub evaluation report published earlier this year, found that between October 2022 and March 2023, it cost £66,580 to run 38 hubs across the county.
It's now set up a community hub network, with 8 of these in East Cambridgeshire and 15 in South Cambridgeshire.
In East Cambridgeshire, funding for the hubs comes through the county council and any local fundraising efforts.
In South Cambridgeshire, the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Integrated Care System provides funding for the district council to then be used by Cambridgeshire ACRE to run the hubs over the next two years.
A spokesperson for South Cambridgeshire District Council said £199,579 has been given to Cambridgeshire ACRE for the district's hubs over this period.
Hub takes on 'work with what we've got' approach
"It may be we would want to open up more over the winter as it perhaps get tougher or we get more visitors, so if that means opening more frequently, we would need to get more funding," Rachel added.
"If you had a string, how much money could I have?
"We're planning on doing as much as we can with whatever we get."