A NEW community hub on Carlisle’s Raffles Estate has opened.

And the Lookout Community Hub has also welcomed the Affordable Food Hub to its building, which housed Community Reach until its closure.

Founder Jo Jones outlined the aims of Lookout, which came into being to plug the gap after Community Reach closed – after three decades of work in the area.

She said: “It has been a challenge, I have to say, doing a project like this through a pandemic.

"It hasn’t been as quick as we would have liked, but we are getting there.

“We’ve got Carlisle Library supplying us with books so we can open as a library through the week and from day one we started working with the Affordable Food Hub.

"That has been so lovely having people come in and making those relationships.

“I get a lot from it and now we can offer a cup of tea and a chat – with restrictions being reduced it has been lovely. We have so many ideas going forward and we’re thinking outside the box of how to run courses and things like that. There’s lots going to be happening.”

Jo hoped that the new hub woud have the same success as Community Reach.

She added: “I’m hoping people embrace this like they did with Community Reach.

“We’re still asking the questions of people in the area of what they want most from us and helping to fill the gap of Community Reach.”

She also said that volunteers were needed.

“For now we would love some more volunteers so if you’d like to lend a hand send us a message,” she said.

The Lookout is already inviting people to come along and this week is welcoming people to find out more about help available from the Affordable Food Hub.

They stated: “We have Carlisle Community Help here this morning to answer any questions about the Affordable Food Hub.

“If you live in the Raffles area and would like to find out more about accessing the service pop along to Shadygrove Road and have a chat.”