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About BS3 Community

BS3 Community Development was founded in 1991 to improve the lives of people living in BS3 and the surrounding area. We run two community venues; the Southville Centre and the Chessel Centre.

BS3 Community Development is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee and as a social business we reinvest surplus generated from our profitable services into educational, arts, environmental, health and wellbeing projects that we either run directly or support partners to deliver.

At BS3 Community Development we are committed to ensuring equality of opportunity and access, celebrating diversity, and promoting inclusion and belonging. These concepts are not just crucial in relation to our service users but are important for our employees and the wider community too.

Our values

Active – we listen, adapt, and enable.

Connecting – we collaborate and build trust together.

Inclusive – we nurture fairness and respect to create a sense of belonging.

Our people

Our organisation delivers and supports many vibrant community activities and services within the BS3 area of Bristol led by our senior management team. May we introduce…

Dr Simon Hankins (he/him/his)

Chief Executive Officer

Simon has a degree and PhD in Applied Biology and spent 16-years heading-up research and development teams for various speciality fertiliser companies in the UK, Norway and Canada before moving to lead a bereavement and loss charity in Stoke-on-Trent. Simon joined BS3 Community Development in 2011. The charity built and opened the Chessel Centre in 2017, changed it’s name from the Southville Community Development Association to ‘BS3 Community Development’ in 2018 to better reflect it’s area of benefit and has grown to become a relatively large local employer through the provision of its nurseries as well as the charitable outreach work that we do. We continue to develop our social enterprise approach that is aligned with, and balanced against, the delivery of our charitable objects, and have managed to survive and be there to support those who live and work in the BS3 postcode area of South Bristol through the pandemic and more recently the cost-of-living crisis.

Becca McDougall

Head of Finance and Operations

Becca joined the organisation and the senior management team in 2017 as Finance Manager and has since expanded her duties to support more general operations of the charity. She is responsible for managing all aspects of the department including the financial accounting systems, HR systems including employee engagement, IT infrastructure, processes and policies, ensuring that they are appropriate, up-to-date and meet the organisation’s statutory/legal obligations. Becca also leads the Equalities Diversity Inclusion & Belonging Working group (EDIB working group), to progress the underpinning of good equalities practices both internally and externally. She provides financial management, HR, EDIB and other reports, data and information as required and contributes to the development and delivery of the strategic aims and objectives of the charity.

Kelly Murphy (she/her/hers)

Executive Head of Early Education and Childcare

Kelly joined the organisation and the senior management team in 2020 as The Head of Early Education and Childcare and has since expanded her duties to support the building and facilities team within the charity. She is responsible for managing all aspects of the department including safeguarding children, EYFS lead and leads on the Training Hub as is keen to upskill others through our internal employee training and engagement package. She oversees all processes and policies, ensuring that they are appropriate, up-to-date with current practice. Kelly offers a wealth of experience in leading from a wide variety of Early Years settings and school experience and has a passion for creating inclusive, child-centered focus cultures.

Our centres

Southville Centre

The Southville Centre is a beautiful, characterful grade II listed Victorian, landmark building

Southville Centre

Chessel Centre

The Chessel Centre is a modern, innovatively designed, feature building

Chessel Centre