Trustees and directors of the 50-year-old London Irish Centre in Camden have asked people to tell it what they want from their centre over the next 50 years.
They have set up an online survey at www.licfuture.org.
It follows last month’s 18 July meeting, billed as a ‘Community Conversation’ at which Irish people of all generations were invited to have their say.
The directors say the centre is no longer for purpose but could be developed into a world-class centre.
The London Irish Centre directly employs 24 staff and will have a turnover this year of nearly £1.5m from Irish government grants, rental income, trading and donations.
The Centre is the charity’s key asset and provides it with a third of its charitable income.
The LICC believe that redeveloping the site can bring eventually lead to much higher income ‘to bring Irish care, culture and community to London’ via its welfare advice, befriending, and wellbeing & elders services.
The centre currently hosts or stages 400 cultural events a year, reaching 20,000 people with a total of 60,000 people visiting the centre throughout the year.
The directors say the 1850s houses which comprise the centre have too many stairways, require too much maintenance, do not have adequate disabled access and cost too much to heat. They are also unhappy with the PA and audiovisual facilities.
They have not publicly said how much such a new centre, on the site of the old one, would cost but informed estimates have put it at just under £10m.
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