I’ve been checking in on this building every time I’ve been in town and watched as the community-led team have slowly, carefully brought it back into play.
Now – as you can see from our lead image – it’s no longer purple and not far off being ready to go.
It’s one of an encouraging number of examples of vacant, sometimes long-empty, heritage, landmark buildings that are being restored and repurposed by local individuals and organisations.
Like many of them, this one, The Queen’s Ballroom in Tredegar, has a special place in the heart of the town and its residents, thanks to a long history as a cinema, ballroom and most recently a nightclub.
As academy founder and inspiration for the project, Kevin Philips (pictured right), says: “It became an old dark building. We are refurbishing it to a nice standard. Upstairs will be the permanent home for the Blaenau Gwent Film Academy. Downstairs is going to be for events of all kinds and to bring the community together once again. It will lift the town.”
The huge potential for community uses to take on town and city centre buildings is a very strong theme of our tackling highstreet vacancy work.
It’d be great to hear your examples of community-led ventures bringing buildings back…
