Questions remain about the future of a building that has served as a Burngreave community asset for many years. The Spectrum Centre, previously the Irish Centre, on Brunswick Road, has been sold by Sheffield City Council into private ownership.
For the last few years the building has been run as the Spectrum Centre by the Yemeni Refugee Organisation (YRO), a Burngreave-based charity. A 125-year lease for the building originated in 1964 with the Irish Centre. YRO took on the lease for the building four years ago, but never owned the building.
Sheffield City Council recently sold the freehold to the building at auction for £21,000, this price includes the building itself. The YRO will continue to hold the lease unless the lease agreement is broken or the lease is assigned to someone else with the freeholder’s permission.
It is understood that YRO are no longer running projects from the building, but they are seeking funding, and continued to run a drop-in centre from their other premises at 17 Burngreave Road.