Inside Heavitree’s new park cafe and community hub

Published: 21 October 2021

A long-awaited park café and community hub is set to open in Exeter, thanks partly to City Council funding.

The City Council has been shown around the new facility in Heavitree Pleasure Ground ahead of its Half Term opening.

The £800,000 initiative is the work of community charity Park Life Heavitree and has been made possible partly thanks to a £70,000 grant from the City Council’s Strategic Fund.

The café is already selling food from its hatch and next week people will be able to set foot inside the building and view for themselves the café, community facilities and meeting rooms.

Cllr Amal Ghusain, Lead Councillor for Communities and Culture, said: “This is a fantastic local facility. The City Council was just one of the organisations that supported this community hub, and we are delighted to see it up and running.

“This building is here to serve the community and to bring people together. This is exactly the sort of project that we want to support.

“This is not the council telling people we will give you this. It is the people saying this is what we are doing and can you be part of the support, and that is exactly what we did.”

Ben Hunt, a Trustee of Park Life Heavitree, said: “This is a community-led project that has been in the making for 10 years in Heavitree.

“We are a group of local people who had a bit of a dream, a bit of an idea about building a café and community hireable hall in the park, and here it is on the first day of the hatch being open and coffee and food being served to local people.

“It has been an amazing journey. So many local people have come forward and volunteered, it really is a community project that has been done by the community for the community.”