Preston Beach currently has around 250-260 permanent residents and this increases to as many as 2,000 day visitors during the summer months, making the community centre incredibly important. Not only does it provide a venue for meetings and events, but also offers office space for community members and visiting services, as well as functioning as an evacuation centre during fire emergencies.
Increasing the capacity of the centre means the facility will now be able to accommodate events for up to 200 people, providing a valuable resource for connecting the community.
The new centre features more bookable office space, which is conducive to the collaboration and community building that comes with shared space, and the centre now also allows disabled access making it more readily accessible to more of our community members and visitors.
The centre is managed by the Preston Beach Progress Association and the upgrade in facilities was made possible with funding support from the Australian Government’s Building Better Regions Fund, the State Government’s Royalties for Regions program and Local Projects Local Jobs, Lotterywest, the Shire of Waroona, and the Alcoa Waroona Sustainability Fund and was officially opened on 6 September 2019.
This centre will now provide the Preston Beach community an adequate and innovative space that is able to meet a range of this community’s needs.