Road trip - Day three

Heath Town Community Support & Information Centre

In the middle of a pretty formidable council estate in Wolverhampton lies Heath Town Community Support & Information Centre. It took me about 15 minutes and a couple of phone calls to find the centre on the first floor of what seemed to me to be just another block of flats. As I came up the stairs I saw that in fact there was a whole concrete open level with a few shops and a courtyard.

I came through the door of the centre and the first thing that struck me was how busy the small office was. Phone calls were being made, stories recounted, documents rifled through and computers crowded around as several local residents were in the process of being helped out by four or so volunteers and staff members. I was soon greeted by Debbie Humphreys (who entered the competition) and Terry who is a volunteer and looks after their IT systems. After a brief chat with Debbie who was sure to give me a good grilling about the health and safety of wireless equipment, how the WiFi service works and so on I was handed over to Terry. Terry offered me a cup of tea, which I gratefully accepted and we started chatting about the centre as I set about testing the new Be broadband line that had recently gone live. After a few minutes everyone else had left the office for lunch and we started the installation.

The Heath Town Community Support & Information Centre provides services and advice to local residents on matters ranging from legal advice, job search, housing and even keeping in touch with family overseas.

The Be line worked fine and the installation went very smoothly. I thanked Terry for his time and a lovely cup of tea and headed back to the car. There was at least one more winner in Wolverhampton I wanted to get done by the end of the day.