Inner West Pride Centre
Council recognises and celebrates the community of the Inner West who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other diverse sexual orientations and genders and those with innate variations in sex characteristics, often referred to as intersex.
Inner West Pride Centre is now open!
In 2024, Inner West Council delivered a $2.6 million renovation of Newton Town Hall to open NSW’s first council funded LGBTQIA+ Pride Centre.
The Pride Centre is operated in partnership with Twenty10, an iconic LGBTQIA+ organisation that has been providing life-saving youth and counselling services to our community for over 40 years.
Situated in Pride Square, the Centre provides a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space for the LGBTQIA+ community to connect, gather and access support, and offers spaces for community hire.
In addition to running their own core programs at the Centre, Twenty10 is bringing the Pride Centre to life through partnerships with other grassroots LGBTQIA+ organisations, groups and communities.
Current programs include queer youth support services delivered by Twenty10, and a drop-in trans legal service delivered by Inner City Legal Centre, funded with support from Inner West Council. Contact Twenty10 for more information.
Twenty10 is also planning further community consultation and collaboration with Inner West Council to help inform future programming and events.
Learn more about LGBTQ+ programs and events in Inner West Council's What's On calendar and Twenty10's website.
You can also sign up to Council newsletters for updates.
Pride Centre purpose
Twenty10’s vision for the Centre is a safe, accessible hub for connection, care, creativity, and collaboration for LGBTQIA+ communities.
Twenty10 was selected to manage Pride Centre programs and operations following a rigorous Expression of Interest process, which saw applications received from a number of high calibre community organisations.
Following extensive community consultation by Inner West Council over a number of years, the Inner West Pride Centre is intended to:
- Provide a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space for the LGBTQ+ community
- Address social isolation of all risk groups within the LGTBQ+ community by providing a safe, accessible space to connect, gather, and support
- Where appropriate, provide access to services and programs (with particular emphasis on services and programs responsive to the Inner West LGBTQ+ community)
- Support capacity building within the community
Background
In 2018 Council investigated hosting a Pride Centre in the Inner West and consulted with the community. View the Visioning a Pride Centre Engagement Report here (DOCX 2.5MB).
The community was invited to help create a vision for the Pride Centre. The community engagement has canvassed a diverse range of issues and themes focusing on
87% of respondents to the Pride Centre survey said it was very or extremely important to have a Pride Centre in the Inner West.
Newtown Town Hall was identified as a prime location for the Pride Centre that aligned with the community vision.
In 2023, Inner West Council invited Expressions of Interest from suitable organisations or consortia for the management/operation of the Inner West Pride Centre at Newtown. The outcome of this EOI process was announced in December 2023, with the appointment of Twenty10.
Newtown Town Hall
Newtown Town Hall is a two story, heritage building located in Pride Square (formerly Newtown Square) in the heart of Newtown. The building underwent significant, complex remedial work to transform it into the Pride Centre. Newtown Neighbourhood Centre is now located at its new purpose-built premises at 11-13 Darley Street, Newtown. More information here.
Should you have any questions about this remedial work, please contact Scott Mullen on scott.mullen@innerwest.nsw.gov.au or 9392 5741.