Bolton Wanderers FC captain and vice-captain visit community centre in Platt Hill to mark its handover to Bolton Wanderers in the Community

This week Bolton Wanderers Football Club captain, Ricardo Santos, and vice-captain, Gethin Jones, visited The Sutton Community Centre in Platt Hill to meet with local residents and mark the centre’s handover from Clarion Housing Group to Bolton Wanderers in the Community (BWitC).

The Bolton Wanderers FC players took time out of their busy schedules to visit the community centre in Bolton, where Clarion owns and manages hundreds of homes, which plays host to a variety of activities and support delivered by BWitC.

BWitC’s mission is to use the power of Bolton Wanderers FC to inspire and support local people, delivering interventions and targeted engagement to help transform lives, enabling communities to thrive and succeed.

Programmes delivered locally target people as young as five years old in schools, all the way through to 90+ as part of active ageing programmes. BWitC’s main areas of work include cohesion, disability, employability, mentoring, social inclusion, schools and wellbeing.

Now with the community centre as its hub and funding provided by Clarion Futures, the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group, BWitC is delivering a wide range of projects tailored to the needs of the local community.

One such project is a new youth club open on Friday evenings for local residents aged 12-17, providing a safe space for young people to come and make new friends and help them feel a sense of belonging, as well as opportunities to take part in social action projects within the community. The aim is for the new programme to help young people living locally to develop life skills, as well as accessing volunteering, leadership and employment opportunities.

The centre also acts as a warm space through its Community Hub offer, opening its doors and welcoming people to take part in activities and keep warm, enabling them to save money on their energy bills. The Community Hub runs on Tuesdays from 10:30am-1pm and Wednesdays from 3-7:30pm until the end of March, with sessions targeting different age groups.

Matt Parsonage, Head of Communities for Clarion Futures, said:

“Partnerships with organisations like Bolton Wanderers in the Community are so important for our work in communities nationwide, helping us to make a bigger difference by teaming up to achieve shared goals. Now with the community centre in Platt Hill as their home, we hope that BWitC’s work will go from strength to strength, providing support to local residents and focusing their efforts where they’re needed most in these difficult times.”

Richard Slater, Bolton Wanderers in the Community Impact Manager, said:

“We are delighted to be partnering with Clarion Futures to provide positive activities and engagement to the residents and local community around the Sutton Estate. We have worked with Clarion Futures for several years through our outreach projects and now managing the community centre is the next step in working together to support the local community to thrive.”

Ricardo Santos, Club Captain at Bolton Wanderers Football Club, said:

“I’ve really enjoyed coming down to the community centre to find out more about the work that Bolton Wanderers in the Community is delivering and hearing the plans for how the centre will be used to benefit the community. It’s important for us as players to support the work our club carries out in the community, and I’m delighted to help mark the handover of the centre.”

Find out more about the support available through Bolton Wanderers in the Community.