Soha Housing and Makespace Oxford hosted a community open evening in Soha’s newly opened, publicly hireable space yesterday.
40 visitors dropped in to the Soha offices opposite Didcot Parkway station to hear from the The Didcot Powerhouse Fund and Makespace Oxford and view Soha’s Community Station facility.
Didcot Powerhouse Fund’s Chair and Deputy Lieutenant for Oxfordshire, Elizabeth Paris, launched its grant-awarding season for 2024. The Fund, set up in 2021 to tackle inequality and deprivation within the Didcot Garden Town Area of Influence, directs grants to community organisations improving local lives. Applications are invited, from 1 December 2023, from those demonstrating they “create stronger bonds in our community”. Grants ranging from £400 to £10,000 were awarded last year, in a total distribution of £80,000.
Makespace Oxford used the open evening opportunity to show at first hand how they revive vacant spaces to lease to organisations or individuals to generate social impact. One ground-floor wing of Soha’s offices was repurposed by Makespace after the pandemic – Station Road Studios is one location of eight across Oxfordshire.
The Community Station itself is a suite of three areas – two spacious offices ideal for private individual or small group consultations and a bright soft-furnished multi-purpose room with AV in a variety of seating permutations. All are available for hire in half-hour increments by contacting communitystation@soha.co.uk.
Sustainable Didcot hire the other large space in the Community Station from Soha. They showed visitors their area and talked about their plans to open a Climate Emergency Centre. The events and activities they have coming up can be found at Sustainable Didcot (google.com)
Photography: Hannah Pye for Makespace Oxford
