A MAJOR £150,000 refurbishment of the heart of Barton has begun.

Improvement work to the Neighbourhood Centre, in Underhill Circus, started last week and is due to be completed by early November.

The first part of the project will include a complete redesign of the basement so it can become a dedicated area for children’s activities.

Cash has come from the Play Barton project, which started life as an £800,000 pot for an indoor and outdoor play park.

The Government froze funding for the scheme last July as it announced plans to save £1 billion from the education budget. But £450,000 of the money was put back on the table and bosses decided to share it around other parts of Oxford earlier this year.

Thanks to that decision, three other play areas, in Blackbird Leys, Littlemore and Hinksey, have now received funding for improvements.

Sue Holden, part of the project, said: “In this climate I don’t think anyone felt comfortable with taking that amount of money, while knowing that other people and projects perhaps weren’t going to be getting as much. We decided to share it out.”

The Barton Neighbourhood Centre will become wheelchair accessible and will feature new doors and a new ‘play hub’. The kitchen, which features the Eatwells cafe, will double in size, the toilets will be gutted and refitted and the sports hall, in the basement, will be repainted with new line markings.

This redesign will be aimed towards younger users.

Phil Jones, an Oxford City Council locality officer based at the centre, said it was a much needed facelift.

He said: “The toilets in particular could do with a refurbishment.

“When you ask people what they want in the area, youth facilities are always high up the agenda so this is great news, particularly for the youth club.

“The neighbourhood centre is the heart of Barton.”

The centre’s outdoor play park will be refurbished next month.