A Bradford estate's new £400,000 community centre could be open in time to host a May Day celebration next year.

Residents of Woodside have worked for three-and-a-half years on various schemes for the centre.

And building work on Fenwick Drive is now scheduled to start within months after the estate's team won a £313,715 National Lottery grant, which will be topped up with £90,000 from Royds Community Association.

The time scale for a building which is up-and-running is about 12 months, members of the scheme's steering committee heard at a meeting with project architect Bruce Raw.

Detailed plans are still being drawn up, but the community centre will include a caf/bar area, kitchen, sports hall, showers and changing rooms, office space for Woodside Community Association, training room, rooms for advice work and other groups, storage space and an enclosed garden.

There will also be rooms for health staff to run a baby clinic, replacing the one operating at the former health centre, which is temporarily being used as a community centre for Woodside.

Raj Panesar, of Royds, who has worked with residents on the bid, said: "This is the development we have all wanted to see on the Woodside estate. We now want to set up something that will go from generation to generation. It will create a new heart to Woodside."

Steering group chairman Steve Hustler said: "It's long overdue."

The building contract is to go out to tender, with a steering group of residents overseeing the terms of the tender.

That exercise is likely to take about three months, with construction work lasting for about nine months.

Lottery funding includes the internal fixtures and fittings, such as the bar, fitted cupboards, toilets and showers, but excludes furniture such as tables and chairs. The centre will be used as a venue for groups such as the estate's parent and toddler group, and Mr Raw said the enclosed garden would be ideal in good weather for youngsters to play in.

The sports hall, with adjoining kitchen, would also be suitable for functions, such as wedding receptions.

Mr Panesar said the training room could include information technology equipment, with the possibility of a "virtual link" with Buttershaw and Delph Hill, the other estates in the Royds area.

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