The Sennen Cove Recreation Centre is a volunteer run charity that provides affordable facilities for community sport & recreation, located on the Sennen seafront.  

We have recently received planning permission to rebuild, which is great news as the building is in very poor condition, with widespread damp & mould and a subsiding bank at the rear, so it is unsuitable for use by the community.  This new and improved centre will offer a warm, safe, comfortable space with accessible changing areas, toilet & shower facilities, community gym, small kitchen and multi-purpose training areas, enabling us to support many more activities.  

The need for the centre is clear, with a variety of groups, non-profits, schools and individuals expressing a keen interest in using the new facility.

We've now secured over £460,000 of funding with just £25,000 left to raise!!

We have carried out a feasibility survey on different ways of renovating the existing building, but the structural survey showed that the retaining wall at the back of the building is insufficient and in danger of subsiding, and to fix this issue requires a partial demolition of the existing building - and it would be more expensive to sort this issue and rebuild what is there then bring it up to standards than to fully demolish the building and start again which would also have the added bonus of being much more environmentally friendly and in keeping with the surrounding buildings.

Without the centre the community surf club would no longer be able to run as there would be nowhere to store the  surfboards & other equipment necessary to run the sessions.  There is high demand for the club surf lessons, with over 40 children on the waiting list to join the club.  Beach based rookie lifeguard training (for children aged 7-14) offered by the club provides essential water safety education to help keep children (and their parents) safe at the beach and in the sea. It would be a serious blow to the community to lose these activities if the centre is not made safe.

The gig club would be without a base for their Sennen activities which they have reported has led to fewer people joining their club.  It is particularly important as they have a heavy wooden gig that requires two crews to launch, but only one can row at any one time - which leaves the remaining crew shore bound in a variety of weather conditions (less important when you are active, but when waiting can rapidly become uncomfortable). 

Gym equipment currently does not last very long due to the damp environment in the building, which has limited the gym offering in the centre.  However it has been made to work, with clubs running winter circuit type training etc from the centre using the limited equipment available.  This has obviously stopped in recent years due to the health implications of exercising in an environment with widespread mould. 

There are community spaces to rent in nearby Sennen, however being a coastal community it is of huge value to have a dedicated community space by the sea, to accommodate different water / beach based activities and visits, and also to encourage and support the social side of these ocean based community clubs. The next closest community building is 1.3 km away - but access is up a very steep cliff path or a busy road which has a gradient of up to 20% so is not suited for ocean / beach based recreation. 

We recently surveyed the local community to discover what activities would be of interest to people locally. To date we've had over 120 responses. The existing activities at the centre (surfing, gig rowing and lifesaving) were well represented, and there was very high demand (over 50% of responses) for first aid training and gym / circuit training.  New activities such as sea swimming, yoga / pilates, film nights & environmental awareness events also were highly rated by respondents. 

The project was kick started a year ago when we were successful in securing £20,256 of funding from the Cornwall Council Community Capacity Fund (CCF) to carry out vital feasibility studies, that helped us to determine that the centre needs rebuilding and what a future design should look like to provide maximum benefit to the community. We were also awarded a further £21,450 to create a tender ready pack of documents for the rebuild.

The project was prioritised for support to create a comprehensive application to the national Community Ownership Fund - a fund dedicated to saving community assets, like the centre, that are at risk of being lost to the community.  We received a successful award of £322,079 capital funding and £50,000 of revenue funding in December 2024!

The Bernard Sunley Foundation awarded the project a grant of £20,000 in July 2024, and our successful Crowdfunding campaign in June 2024 raised over £25,000 and we've been in receipt of many donations from local businesses and individuals - big thankyou to all of you! 

We now are left with just a £25,000 shortfall for the project and are actively fundraising to meet this, and this is where you come in.