Centre seeks £800k to improve climbing facilities
BBCA community centre is seeking £800,000 to improve its climbing facilities.
The Cleobury Community Hub in Shropshire already has a bouldering wall and cafe but wants to offer more.
Centre manager Mark Greaves said the aim of the climbing facilities was to mentally challenge young people and support "disenfranchised kids".
He said he was hoping to get all the funding through grants and had a number of applications in.
The hub, which is based inside a former chapel, received planning permission in June last year for a fully roped, fully accessible climbing wall, along with an extension to the bouldering wall, a dance studio and an extension to the cafe.
Greaves, who has been climbing himself for 20 years, said climbing at the hub started in 2010.
He said: "We believe that climbing is a really good way of doing life together."
The climbing walls were originally built so that local children did not have to travel as far to get involved in the sport, and he said they "really make an impact in the lives of young people and their families".
He explained bouldering is a series of problems to be solved, to test the minds of the people taking part.
"It's not just about the brute strength of getting up to the top of the wall," he said.
Greaves said watching people of all ages enjoy climbing and bouldering was rewarding to him too.
He said it "makes a difference to my life every day" to see the tears and the joy and people working together.
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