Bingo, ballroom dancing and bowls: the history of community centres in Hull - and the impact of that on what happens next....

The Hull Federation of Community Organisations (HFCO) developed in the 1980s to enable mutual support among the growing number of community centres opening across the city as post-war reconstruction took place and became a model replicated nationally. A successful Heritage Lottery Fund application was made in 2023 for a year long project to document the history of Hull's community centres and HFCO. This research draws on a well maintained archive, interviews with those involved past and present and focus groups to document the rise (and decline) of centres and the Federation both to chart the history and to inform current debate and discussion about the future of community buildings as neighbourhoods and policy and strategy change. This paper explores the importance of history in future development. The first community centre opened in Hull in 1947 at about the same time as the National Federation of Community Organisations (or Community Matters as it was better known) was being established to provide support to the wide range of community buildings opening in post war urban settlements. Over the next fifty years, community centres opened across Hull, the last one in 1996 at Victoria Dock. This development was supported at a strategic level in Hull City Council by a Community Associations Liaison Committee chaired by the leader of the council and supported by a team of development workers, and at an operational level by the Hull Federation of Community Organisations (HFCO), a council funded voluntary organisation that brought centres together for mutual support and eventually closed in 2012.

As this research was taking place, so also was a programme of support for surviving centres by a local infrastructure body which had the potential to shape the future of community centre provision across the city. Two focus groups, led by staff from the University of Hull, near to the end of the project brought the past, present and the future together. The intention was to try and consolidate our findings on the history but actually led to serious discussions about the future and how important it was that those making decisions about the future were aware of the past. What started as a documentation of history became a piece of action research with the potential for having an impact on the future. This paper will explore the processes that led to this and some of the learning points that came from the research


The report was launched in June 2022.


Ann has a long background in community development and research in the voluntary and community sectors, specialising in work around community buildings of all kinds and in matters rural.  She was previously Regional Co-ordinator for Community Matters (previously the National Federation for Community Organisations) in Yorkshire and the Humber.  The subject of her PhD was women's role in rural community practice.  She is now a partner in Cross Keys Associates carrying out consultancy in research, development and charity governance.