Muirhouse: Community bedrock faces closure without urgent funding

The Millennium Centre in Muirhouse is home to the charity ‘LIFT’ – the bedrock of this north Edinburgh community.

The building offers a wide range of activities, clubs, and support services, catering to a wide range of age groups, from babies to pensioners.

There’s a food service, financial support sessions and even “cosy bingo”.

But LIFT Muirhouse is at risk. With costs rising just to keep the lights on and bills mounting for essential repairs, staff are appealing for help with funding.

The building costs roughly £45,000 a year to run, and while the charity knows it can find that cash until summer 2026, it needs help from there.

They’ve requested grants from the council for that sum each year over a three-year period, and a public fundraiser for £25,000 has been launched to pay for work on the Millennium Centre’s structure.

But as of yet they’ve got no firm commitment from the local authority that any cash is coming their way.

LIFT founder Pauline Nicol-Bowie MBE told STV News: “In our group work we see 141 people, just in our group work, that’s not the people coming in for support, coming in to use our sharing shelf, the kids club.

“Where are those people going to go?”

There are now ten members of staff as well as dozens of volunteers at LIFT, many of whom have benefited from the services themselves.

It operates with an open-door policy which is crucial for members of the community.

Pauline continued: “Somebody comes in here crying, the befriender Nicola is away – she’s got them a cup of tea, settle them down.

“That’s all some people need is a cup of tea and a cuddle.”

Staff in Muirhouse, just like at many other community centres like this one, feel it only makes sense for local authorities to invest in their services.

They argue that councils will end up shouldering the costs – or perhaps even higher costs – if they were to close.

On a more personal level, they fear that if communities like Muirhouse didn’t have the likes of LIFT, they just wouldn’t have any support at all.

Centre manager Danielle Leadbetter said: “Our staff in there are run to the ground.

“I wouldn’t even know how many service users we’ve had just this week.

“We’re having to fight, and obviously we want to fight because we need the centre, the community needs the centre.”