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Well done to the Fund Raising Committee, particularly Amanda for all her hard work in successfully gaining a £10,000 grant award from the Derbyshire County Council Aggregates Levy Grant Scheme.  The Memorial Hall Committee heard the good news last night.

Please click here for a printer-friendly version of this newsletter, in PDF format. Printed copies can also be found in St. Peter’s Church, The Sycamore, and on village notice boards.

After a thorough and comprehensive tender process involving five separate building companies competing for the job, Wildgoose Construction Ltd have now been appointed as the contractors for the new Memorial Hall. One of the reasons that this company was selected – in addition to them presenting the lowest price – was their previous experience of working locally and collaborating directly with the Peak District National Park Authority. They demonstrated sensitivity to the demands of working in a village such as ours, and understood the need to keep disruption to a minimum.

Wildgoose has shown a willingness to work closely with the committee and the existing donors and local business who are offering free of charge, or at cost building materials. This ensures that we get best value for money, while keeping the overall cost as low as possible.

We have all been aware of the difficulties created by the recent economic climate. However, every cloud has a silver lining. For us this means building costs have reduced dramatically over recent months, enabling the current estimate to be in the region of £730,000. It is hoped that this figure can be further reduced when the detail of all materials that can be supplied free of charge is known. This can then be further subtracted from the costs.

The revised figure not only reflects reduced costs of building, but also the professional fees for the consultants and design team. Their support has been instrumental in achieving the building cost reductions. Since professional fees were originally included in the fundraising figures as “in kind” contributions, we have now reduced this accordingly. Consequently, the funding gap is now in the region of £40,000 to £60,000, depending on how subsequent costs come down as prices become clearer with time. This is good news because there are applications already submitted (and some with a good chance of success) for grants totalling over £90,000.

The build can now start as soon as all the necessary contractual paperwork has been finalised. Our current expectations are that this paperwork will be completed by mid September.