Community and Enterprise Hub carefully nurtured out of Old Fire Station

Decommisisoned in 2014, The Old Fire Station was revived as a community centre and enterprise hub a few years later with the support of the Leeds Community Foundation and funding from a local businessman, the late Jimi Heselden. Jimi felt passionately about supporting his local community, so this was a very appropriate way of acknowledging his tremendous generosity.

The Old Fire Station opened as a community space in 2017. The generously sized café in the central space of the fire station is open from 8am to 4pm every weekday. According to one local YouTuber, it serves the best breakfast in Leeds!

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The space hosts events in the evening and six charities rent office space in the renovated and extended building, including the Leeds Cookery School with a high tech kitchen, and Gipsil which works with children, young people, and families in the most disadvantaged communities in Leeds and Wakefield to provide them with the support and resources they need to thrive.  

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Evening events are organised by the charities who use the building, including discos for seniors, musical theatre, Leeds Playhouse and Opera North have visited for performances and there are regular open mic nights and chairobics. There’s even a sewing group and, of course, activities for children in the school holidays.

When the Warm Welcome Campaign team visited in the Easter holidays, creative director of the Encore Academy, Henry, was leading a week-long activity for children. Together they were rehearsing then performing a musical drama piece for parents and carers.

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In Warm Welcome Week in January Henry led activities including board games, a free concert, sessions with their digital inclusion officer and lots of cuppas.

Regulars at the drop in café include a group of eight former firemen who used to work at the fire station who’ve been friends for 40 years. One, Trevor, still lives in one of what were the firemen’s houses right next door to the Old Fire Station building and he comes every day for a cuppa.

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One visitor says: “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened.”

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The Old Fire Station Development Manager Fran Etherington, who has led the reopening of the Fire Station as a community hub and continues to run the space, has used National Lottery funding to create a ‘Meet Me at the Old Fire Station’ project, which brings the six charities in the building together to develop partnership working and provide services for the local people of Gipton in Leeds. The project funds a volunteer coordinator who coordinates volunteering across all of the charities, with 44 volunteers in all.

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Fran has six staff including two receptionists and café staff. The space is wholly owned by the Leeds Community Foundation.

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In pride of place on display are more than 200 toy fire engines, donated by a local collector, some of which are rare and worth quite a bit of money.

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It’s such a fantastic space, a hub for local people with a whole range of backgrounds and a shining example of a Warm Welcome Space.

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Jo’s story

Jo has volunteered at the Old Fire Station since 2021 and is now a regular helper in the café kitchen. Jo lost her mum, who she had cared for, a few years ago and suffered  terribly with anxiety and depression. A social prescriber suggested she visit the Old Fire Station and she has found it a lifeline.

Initially, Jo helped sell donated items of clothing in the space, then graduated to helping in the kitchen. Previously unable to leave the house, volunteering and joining the community at the Old Fire Station has hugely added to her confidence and outlook on life.

“I love this place, it means so much to me,” says Jo. “I wouldn’t be where I am without this place. I’ve gone from not being able to leave my front door, to being with a partner. I’ve got two dogs and a job. I wouldn’t be me without this place.”

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