YOUNGSTERS at Rose Hill junior youth club have seized the chance to take part in a range of new activities after moving into their new home.

Dozens of children who take part in the club two days a week were present when the new £4.7m centre in Ashhurst Way opened last Saturday.

But they had already had the chance to get a taste of the centre before then after they moved in on January 20 and are now busy settling in.

The group’s leader community worker Fran Gardner said the move signalled the start of a “new age” for the club, which runs from 3.30pm to 5.30pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Ms Gardner said: “It is a new age for us in a way, it is going to take us all a few weeks to find our feet.

“But in that time will come even more creative ideas for everybody about what we actually can do because there is more here than there ever was before.

“I walked into the ballroom before the centre officially opened with the sun shining brightly and it was fantastic and the views across to Boars Hill are just really lovely.

“The centre has really beautiful facilities and I think the key thing for us is having access to the kitchen, which will enable us to do so much more creative work around food.”

The junior youth club met at the old community centre in The Oval from its foundation in February 2011 until it split up for the Christmas 2015.

Since it opened, youngsters have enjoyed trying out the centre’s facilities and coming up with suggestions for new things to do when they come along.

Ms Gardner said: “Our older group will have access to the gym and the gym trainer will be helping us to develop gym sessions for them.

“The older kids will also have boxercise and trampolining.

“We have been made to feel incredible welcome by the community centre manager, David Hunt, and his officers.”

The centre will also have a cafe, a social club and offices for the estate’s advice centre.

It was designed with energy efficiency in mind and its roof is covered in solar panels which provide 49kw of energy a day.

It is hoped this will increase to 63kw a day – the entire usage of the old centre – within a couple of months of the new centre being open.

Ms Gardner said she and the rest of the team at junior youth club had been busy in the start of January moving kit between the old centre and new centre.

She said: “We would be working at the old community centre and cars would be stopping and people asking us when junior youth club would be back in the new centre.

“I suggested making a badge so that every child that came along to the first two sessions at the new centre got one.

“The badges say they have been to the new community centre, it is a great opportunity.”