What’s the status? A quick update…

‭We know what you’re thinking. You haven’t heard from us in a while, so it’s only natural to assume that we’ve all given up and moved to California where we’re spending our days knocking back quinoa smoothies in our buddy Sting’s yoga retreat, right?

Erm, wrong.

We’ve actually been pretty busy. And we’ve got quite a few bits to update you on.

So, first up, we’re in the middle of putting a cash award we’ve received from an organisation called Big Potential to good use. We’re spending this money on a piece of extensive market research which should satisfy a number of North Tyneside Council’s requirements when it comes to our still outstanding planning application.

Secondly, we’re also hard at work developing the detailed swimming pool design, together with further developing the structural design, and the mechanical and electrical services design, too. As we continue to add this extra detail to the plans for the site, we’ll benefit from additional design and cost certainty which will be incredibly useful going forward.

Thirdly, we’re in the process of re-writing and bringing up to date the documentation that Natural England require for their Habitats Regulations Assessment, and this includes a further survey of wintering birds. Again this study will prove to be vital in supporting our planning application.

Each of these three significant pieces of work are happening right now. Yes, as we speak. Told you we were busy!

But what it all means is that we’re confident that at some point during April 2019, we’ll be able to supply all of the additional documentation that North Tyneside Council has asked for in our quest to secure planning consent.

We know we’re a little behind schedule with all of this, but this is the nature of complex projects like this one. And even more so when we’re funding it all with volunteer time, favours, and money raised through grassroots initiatives and grant applications…

…which neatly brings us to our last bit of good news.

Last summer, we applied to the government’s Coastal Revival Fund again for a share in a pot of cash that’s set aside for “supporting projects to help revive heritage assets that are important to local communities but have not yet reached their full potential or are facing neglect.”

Sounds just like our pool, dunnit?

Well, the administrators of the fund think so too, and we found out this week that we’ve been awarded £46,800 which we’ll be able to put towards our costs for professional design services, and more specifically to further develop the detailed design of phase 1 of this amazing project.

We’re getting there. We really are. And we can’t thank you all enough for your continued support.

And as for Sting’s yoga retreat… well… the truth is we’ve never actually even been invited. Bah.