By Daniel Hunter

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has officially opened the doors of a new enterprise centre in Tottenham as part of his continued drive to boost jobs, skills and volunteering opportunities in the area.

The 639 High Road Enterprise Centre, funded by the Mayor and run by local charity London Youth Support Trust (LYST), is a unique project embedded in the local community, that will provide a raft of employment and training services for new businesses.

Entrepreneurial initiatives set to use 639 include Supamums, a group working with teenage and young parents helping to remove obstacles to training and providing job search support; and Made in Tottenham (MIT), a new fashion line run by young people in Tottenham that creates up-cycled clothes (taking old clothes and redesigning them to give them to give them a new lease of life).

The listed building, which was badly fire damaged during the summer riots of 2011, has been restored into a thriving new centre where people of all ages can find out about how they can get started in business, build their skills and their CVs, as well find out more about how to get involved in volunteering as part of the Mayor’s Team London programme.

The centre is part of a wider £41m regeneration programme by the Mayor of London and Haringey Council, focussed on a range of ambitious projects to rejuvenate Tottenham by increasing employment and investment opportunities in the area.

“The transformation of 639 High Road from a dilapidated shell into a buzzing new enterprise centre heralds a really bright future for the people of Tottenham," Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said.

"This fantastic building is now home to a cornucopia of services all aimed at boosting skills, helping people into work, fostering entrepreneurship and encouraging more people into volunteering through Team London. Having emerged Phoenix-like from the ashes, 639 High Road is now a place that everyone in Tottenham can be proud of and I’m delighted the doors are well and truly open.”

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