A COMMUNITY centre for the elderly will open in a former department store if £450,000 can be raised.

Southend Council approved the plans to convert the Grade II listed Havens building in Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff, to a community space for services, advice and support for older people.

Age Concern Southend will take up residency in the former department store building.

The charity has been helping older people in the area since 1974.

The store will still trade online from the top floor of the building.

The charity is now looking to raise about £450,000 to renovate and restore the building.

The charity submitted the plans to the council in November 2017 and has been working closely with the council, heritage consultants and Southend community groups ever since to keep Havens at the heart of the community while retaining the buildings character.

Claire Slack, marketing and fundraising manager of Age Concern Southend said the organisation is delighted the council has granted planning permission.

She said: “The plans were submitted to the council about seven months ago so it feels like a long wait but we are so pleased with the council’s decision.

“We hope that our hub will be a safe and welcoming place that everyone can be part of and that will help beat isolation, loneliness and preventable illness and injury in our community.

“As we will offering all our services in one place, it will make it easier for those we help.

“We are also confident that our hub will provide a much needed boost to footfall in the Hamlet Court area, helping to regenerate a much loved area to its former glory.”

N Expansion - St Bernards High School, Milton Road, Westcliff has been given the permission to extend with eight new classrooms She said that as the store is so much larger than the charities current base, it will be able to extend many of its services.

These include the befriending scheme.

She said “We want to thank the Havens family who we have been working with us on the project.

“We are ecstatic to be able to use such an iconic building.”

The community space will be known as “The Haven” and will provide a range of services in partnership with other groups and charities including befriending, dementia support, public health, hairdressing and more all under one roof to make accessing help, support and information easier for older people.

The Haven will also house a community café, workshop, meeting rooms and a space for club 50+ who will be relocating from Queens Road.

There will also be hairdressing and chiropody services, meeting spaces, craft and hobby areas.

Havens is currently open for business but is set to announce a closing date for part of the store in the near future.

The store closure, after more than 100 years in the town, was announced last May without a date.

The application was deferred in April for a heritage expert, appointed by the council, to review aspects of the plans which might affect the development. That assessment has now been successfully completed. Online shopping and falling numbers of customers were blamed for the demise.