New cafe at Open Gates

Work is picking up pace on the new café at Open Gates since planning was approved in summer 2015.  The plans to turn the Glasgow warehouse owned by Open Gates into a thriving community hub are now coming to fruition.

A team of volunteers and inmates on their one year work placements have already completed the first phase of refurbishing the derelict warehouse which was donated to the offender rehabilitation charity by the Scottish Canal Authority in 2010. The IT suite and seminar rooms which are available for hire by small businesses and members of the local community were completed in 2014.

Sitting alongside the community hub is a wood working and furniture restoration workshop which was the original focus of the Open Gates rehabilitation work placements, one of just a few organisations offering such placements to offenders serving life sentences.

Using our grant, Open Gates has developed its furniture restoration and house clearance service by creating a salesroom which has generated enough funds to build the café.