“For thirty years, Bonnington Square/Vauxhall Grove have been blighted by the Vauxhall Manor School Extension Plan. This was abandoned in 1983, and the Vauxhall Housing Co-operative, anticipating this, obtained a grant from the Inner City Partnership to carry out this study.

“Vauxhall Housing Co-operative was formed in 1981 by squatters in the area in an attempt to secure their homes and to save the houses, many of which at that point were empty and decaying rapidly. During the previous decade the ILEA had bought 79 of the 116 houses in the area and by 1981 were systematically rehousing tenants and boarding up or bricking up the houses.

“With such a high proportion of the housing in its ownership, the ILEA needs to give careful consideration to the best means of withdrawing from the area, taking into consideration its own political and practical interests and those of the local community. This Feasibility Study in the Vauxhall Housing Co-operative’s case for the retention of all the housing as fair or council rented accommodation. It sets out to demonstrate the feasibility of this argument, and draws on successful initiatives to improve the environment and establish a permanent co-operative in order to argue that the only promise of the area’s full restoration lies in support for community-based initiatives.”

Next meetings will resume Monday 9th and 23rd January 2023

This group is sponsored by BCCA after being suggested by local people. It has developed gradually out of a series of well-attended exploratory meetings into a regular warm and welcoming group.

Our Death Café is a place to meet face-to-face and freely share any topic around death & dying. It is informal, lightly facilitated and in BCCA’s lovely Community Café. No week or conversation is the same. Everyone is encouraged to join the Community Centre (£1 per annum), and to donate tea, coffee, biscuits, cake or money to cover basic costs. The Café meeting space is wheelchair accessible. There is a toilet, but it is not wheelchair-accessible.

About Jeff, Susan, Bernard and Nicky (rotating facilitators)

We are all people who want to make the topic of death a part of our everyday lives. We have experienced complex lives, illnesses and bereavement and are fascinated by the different experiences people share. We have to face and prepare for our own deaths.

Contact the organiser of this Death Café via bcca@btinternet.com

Click here for general information about what is a Death Café

BCCA is working in partnership with Phd researcher Xiuzheng Li of the UCL, Bartlett School of Architecture, to gather and compile a comprehensive digitised Archive of BCCA-related material including photographs, videos, audio, textual and other data that documents the long, rich and dynamic historical narrative of the Bonnington Centre and Café and its colourful relationship with the local and extended community.

If you have any potential archival material or if you might be interested in sharing your personal memories and recollections, please contact the Archive team at BCCA_Archive@outlook.com

The Archive will be available to BCCA members and will support funding bids towards the upkeep, improvement and ongoing sustainability of our historic building as a local community recreational meeting and eating place, wellbeing resource and haven.

Please share this notice with anyone you know who might like to contribute.

On 21st December 2022 the Bonnington Centre and Community Café will co-host its regular annual winter solstice ‘BIG COMMUNITY PARTY’ with ‘Bring Food (Vegan and Vegetarian only) and Drinks to share”. As usual the event will be enthusiastically organised and hosted by Marie and Sandra. 

Celebrations will start at 4pm with communal dancing at St Anne’s Hall on the corner of Vauxhall Grove and Harleyford Road, two minutes walk from the Centre. Fleet of foot regulars will no doubt weave a tight core for others to swing, clap and laugh around. Dancing will be followed by traditional pagan carol singing outside ITALO, with mulled wine courtesy of Charlie, and seasonal address from David our local resident Druid.

There will also be a community screening of films in the Top Room at the Bonnington Centre, featuring a selection of interesting and diverse films made by young local filmmakers Dom Henderson, Charlie Usher, Sam Riley, Sabrina Jones, Patrick Bradley, Milo Anani and Juliet Hager.

It will no doubt be a special day. Please bring as many friends as you can bear to share with! 

Celebrations are FREE and everyone is welcome to join and participate in the fun.

The Café has reopened after essential renovation as a vegetarian and vegan eatery. The kitchen is in full use again in its beaming new facility.

The revived Café will function as a daytime community resource that prioritises local people. Hosting regular recurring and one-off events including workshops, clubs and pop-ups, the Café will also host an ongoing program of monthly arts exhibitions that will feature the works of local, associate, and invited artists.

BCCA pursues a policy of emphasis on the facilitation and participation of people living in the immediately local community whilst remaining open and welcoming to all comers from far, wide and beyond beyond!

The Café aims to function and serve as an inviting, homely accessible venue for daytime activities that cater for the creative expression, inclusive access, likes and preferences of local people. Evenings will continue to be dedicated to the production and serving of a variety of good hearty and healthy affordable vegetarian and vegan food, with an emphasis on encouraging and showcasing local cooks.

Any help that you can offer will be much appreciated. Please read our ‘Wish List’ on the Café window.

Cooking @ the Café

The Bonnington Centre Community Café Cooks list remains open to anyone who would like to cook and host an evening event at the Cafe. All Cooks will be required to fulfil BCCA Café user requirements before being granted licence to cook.

Cooks wishing to support access to nutritional wellbeing in the community by offering subsidised prices to BCAAs local and extended membership will be prioritised and eligible to gain subsidised Café hire rates after taster sessions have been successfully delivered, and Feedback from local diners has endorsed service delivery.

Cooks intending to host private cooking events and cooking events that are for profit will need to present individual Public Liability insurance.

Email Fabio, BCCA Community Café Administrator at bcca@btinternet.com to register your interest as a Cook or as an Exhibiting Artist.