Blackbird Leys Community Centre room in memory of Jack Argent gets new makeover

A team from Oxford City Council spruced up the walls, doors, skirting boards and ceilings in the Jack Argent Room to the tune of £4,000.

New fixtures and furniture have also been added. Regular bingo, church and social groups have now begun to move back in and are seeing a difference.

John Dillon, who uses the room along with the rest of Blackbird Leys Council once a month, said: “It needed brightening up without a doubt.

“With different events that have gone on in this room, and children with mucky hands, it was all marked and now it’s looking a lot better. I believe getting the floor polished up is the last thing to do now.”

The upgrade is the latest in a £25,000 string of refurbishments to the site including car park resurfacing, refitting the reception and installing a new IT hub.

Although a whole new centre is planned as part of the eventual regeneration of Blackbird Leys, council strategic community centre co-ordinator Mark Spriggs said more work is planned over the next six to 12 months.

He added: “Without extensively investing in the building as there may be a new centre coming, we are trying to make it a more friendly and welcoming environment.”

However weekly room users Friendleys, a social group for older people in the Leys, were less impressed with the new paintwork.

Founder Liz Helliwell said: “We thought it was going to be a pale green.”

But she had fond words for Jack Argent, a former Peregrine Close resident for whom the room, as well as Jack Argent Close in Greater Leys, was named. She said: “He was a churchwarden and ran things like bingo here. It was a proper club then with a bar.

“He was a big man in his time, as [late Oxford City Councillor] Val Smith was in hers.”

For eight years Mr Argent, known to many as “Mr Blackbird Leys”, was the chair of the Blackbird Leys Neighbourhood Council, which ran the community centre.

He died in 1990 aged 73.