Several of us met with our Council contacts from Facilities this morning at 9am. It was a measured, calm meeting.
Peter Watton gave us the update that following a Council reorganisation he is now Service Director for Sustainable Development but our project was still under his remit.
The Council are as keen as us to get an empty building open and used and Sally’s comment in the chat when she had to leave the call was ‘glad to hear all the positivity in the room’.
The Council have already undertaken repairs to stonework and have started work to unblock drains, both matters flagged by the architects. We spent a bit of time discussing coping stone work that could be allowing some water ingress and Peter was keen to get further details in order to sort it.
We discussed the architects’ drawings and the fact we need to settle on a design choice for the next phase of the Project Viability work in July. They were happy enough with the drawings.
We updated the Council team on the funding applications we have in – two of which are with the council, namely tomorrow’s Place Based Investment Programme (PBIP) and Regeneration Capital Grant Fund (RCGF). They were pleased to hear about the National Lottery award. Their view was that RCGF was our best bet.
We mentioned we expect the SCIO to be in place around Sept and aiming for an entry date of 1st Sept for us to do works was suggested. A standard Council lease and heads of terms will be sent to us.
It felt like we were all on the same page, indeed on the same side. I’m off to work with a skip in my step.
Jennifer’s blog #24
Well I also managed to this 9am meeting. Did I imagine a look of surprise on Geoff’s face? Him being an early bird and I a very late owl. It certainly was a positive atmosphere and Peter and Alan are really helpful people.
My favourite thing in the meeting though was watching Jen unable to contain her excitement. She was almost effervescent.
Morag.