Building works are progressing well and the building will hopefully open in May.

The club will house:

– a cafe run by The Common Room, an existing and popular cafe in Framlingham, which will occupy the old bar, to be served by an enlarged kitchen. By moving to the club the Common Room will have much larger floorspace than its existing premises. The Common Room will be accessed via the currently blocked front door to the club, but we will provide an accessible route via a new courtyard garden entrance

– a new office and meeting room to be taken by Framlingham Town Council (opening at the start of April). This will give the council more space than their current office and is well positioned for the local community and visitors to Framlingham, being half way between Framlingham’s Market Hill and Framlingham Castle. The office and meeting room will be on the ground floor so there will be greatly improved accessibility.

– a youth room in the old saloon bar to be taken by Framlingham youth organisation FAYAP; this would be used by FAYAP as base for work with young people – a space for social activity, mentoring and creative computer courses, to supplement the existing provision at the FAYAP centre on the Thomas Mills High School site, and in addition to the new pavilion at the Pageant Field. In the mornings the youth room may be available to other community groups to book. 

– meeting rooms for hire: there will be one or two rooms which might be rented by the hour or day, and there has been interest in these being used for exhibitions, poetry readings, art classes, business meetings or community meetings, private events or small parties and wakes (potentially catered for by the Common Room). These rooms will be smaller than the ‘large rooms’ available for hire elsewhere in the town, so providing different options and more variety for the growing town rather than competing with what exists already.

– there is also one 2 bedroom flat, which is being let.

 In addition there will be several studios/offices mostly in more private areas on upper floors which will variously be able to house:

–  co-working space (i.e. a rented desk space in a shared office), which might suit freelancers or self-employed people who would enjoy the sociable side of a shared office space more than working at the kitchen table at home.
–  art studios: we have three artists and an art therapist who have worked in the club for the last 6 months and are keen to stay – but there will be space for more after we have done the building work
–  creative office space: there has been recent interest from writers, photographers, film production and branding/design businesses but we have not really marketed these spaces yet and plan to progress this in the spring if people haven’t found us by then.
 The exact mix of these will depend on what local market there is and may change over time. We want to remain flexible. Anyone interested in renting a studio, several rooms or simply a desk in a shared room please get in touch by email.