First community hub for St Helens Borough brings services to the doorstep

Article date: April 30 2025

The St Helens South Community Hub has opened at Chester Lane, bringing together St Helens Borough Council services with partner organisations including Merseyside Police and Torus Housing all in one convenient location.

Council Leader Councillor Anthony Burns welcomed the first step in a new model that the council is looking to replicate at locations across the borough.

He said: "We know that people across St Helens Borough take great pride in their local area and always want to see more services being delivered on their doorstep. This new model of Community Hubs, with this first one at Chester Lane, offers us a way to bring together a wide range of services where residents can speak to a person face-to-face to get the help they need.

"This way of working in our communities is a vital way to make sure our services are easy to access and we look forward to rolling this model out. We're looking at a range of different hubs across the borough, working with the communities they will be part of, to understand what different services those areas would value being delivered close to home."

The South Community Hub will see regular drop-in sessions from Torus, NHS services, Career Connect, affordable warmth energy advice, and adult social care support among others, alongside the regular wide-ranging programme of community events that are led by the library team based at the site.

The partnership approach means that over the course of the week there will be a number of different services available for people to drop in and ask questions, arrange appointments and also provide a place close to home for people to meet with services such as family support services in confidential spaces.

The South Community Hub was officially opened by the Mayor of St Helens Borough Councillor Jeanette Banks and the first day of the hub opening included a marketplace from a range of services alongside a read and rhyme session and visit from author Ann Cleaves to talk about her new book The Dark Wives.

Councillor Sue Murphy, Cabinet Member for Public Health, added: "We are fortunate that already we have a great range of Family Hubs which have proved incredibly successful in supporting families close to their home. The Community Hub model will build on that work but broaden out the support to everyone to be able to take advantage of the wide range of help and advice the council and our partners can offer."

Find out more about the Community Hub at www.sthelens.gov.uk/communityhubs