Butterflies & Boundary Walls

Time is flying by and the annual Shetland Pony Grand National is upon us once again.  We are all hoping that the rain stays away on Sunday - the 'going' will be soft to heavy but the ponies are pretty light! Don't miss this hilarious event which kicks off at 1pm.

I am finally coming up for air following an intense period of work getting our Big Lottery Local Food bid together.  If we are successful the grant will pay for a complete refurb of the Kitchen Garden and includes a garden room, greenhouse and equipment. We should know the outcome by the end of October which will dovetail nicely with the completion of the Coach House. This video is a 'walkthrough' of the Kitchen Garden project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UPPUn3S7y4&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Its been a busy day for our contractors with cement lorries arriving and blocks stacked ready to build the walls of the new extension on the Coach House next week.  Building work is pretty much on schedule with only a week or so delay for the new roof timbers.

Good news too on the Natural Play Scheme! Tenders came in this week and we have appointed a contractor. Our pre-start meeting is set for the 8th June and the equipment is on order.  If all goes to plan we will have a unique playground with grassy mounds, a tunnel, cableway, swings and loads more all in a rustic style to fit in with the natural landscape by the end of the Summer.

Only fly in the ointment this week is a large section of the boundary wall which came down on Monday.  Probably due to a combination of a dry Spring, followed by very heavy rain and strong wind.  Taking the ivy off the walls may also have been a factor and of course, the Butterfly Mound.  We decided to use the rubble from the Coach House to create a butterfly mound, which we will plant up with nector-rich plants to attract insects when finished. The vibration from the dumper trucks could have been the last straw! We are getting quotes for the repair which I guess will run into thousands.  Its made us very nervous about the condition of the rest of the walls which are not looking too clever.  I am sure our volunteers can tackle some of the smaller patches but we may need some professional help in areas where Buddleia roots have lifted the stones. In fact it looks like the boundary wall was already a butterfly mound! Ah well!

Silver linings.........

Wow! On Friday morning there was no roof on the Coach House. By Friday afternoon we have new timbers. Buried in paperwork, ploughing my way through yet another funding application, I stopped for a cuppa and could hardly believe my eyes when I looked out of the kitchen window.  Brand new timbers in place - that was quick work. Perhaps this is the silver lining - virtually replacing the roof will mean less maintenance in future years so it will be for the best in the end.

A few slates short of a full roof...

As expected we are going to have to replace the timbers on the roof and 80% of the slates so it really will be a 'new top hat'! Of course things like this are always going to happen once you start renovating an old building and that is why we have contingencies.  Once all the digging and delving has finished we are hopeful that this period of discovery will be over and there will be no further surprises. Fingers crossed.

We are all still recovering from a very busy weekend with a Wedding last Saturday and the Gig in the Garden on Monday. This weekend is looking pretty busy too, with the Lancaster Regiment coming to Ford Park to receive the freedom of the Town before parading through the streets.

New Top Hat!

Today we had our second site meeting with the contractors, architects etc. After a slow start we are now pretty much back on track. The scaffolding is up and the boundary wall behind the building is being underpinned so that it doesn't fall down when they dig out the foundations for the new extension.  Also today the slates came off the roof which revealed a problem - most of them are disintegrating so it seems we will need more new slates than first anticipated.  The rafters don't look too clever either - dry rot in many of them. So in the words of our contractors it looks like we are going to need a 'new top hat'. The financial implications of this are still unknown but we are bracing ourselves.

Last week so much was going on that I did not have much time to write this blog.  See the link below which shows the long-awaited day when the heavy equipment arrived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEmd_TpoYqU&feature=channel_video_title

Signfest at Ford Park

If you've walked through Ford Park today you may have wondered if some strange art installation is happening. There are signs everywhere telling you where you can and can't go, what you should be wearing if you go there, what dangers await if you dare to breach the barriers and why its all going on.  Its a veritable festival of signage!

Trouble is there are so many signs now that its become wallpaper and we are still having to direct folks onto the diverted pedestrian route and I am sure there will be some who have turned back thinking their way has been barred.  Let's hope the message gets through soon. We are trying our very best!

Pathway to nowhere

Sorry folks but some of the paths are temporarily closed. I have already had two complaints and its only 11am! The contractors have put barriers up with notices but it appears that having to double back is an inconvenience. I will put out some more barriers and notices at the end of the paths to try to prevent this from happening again.

There are two paths closed - the top path behind the pond, and the main path beyond Ford House.  So if you don't want to double back then please avoid the ziggy-zaggy path and the path from the field through the woodland. You can still walk through to get to Hoad Hill - stick to the main drive in front of Ford House - there is a diversion just past the house to the right, which takes you onto Poplar Grove.  Please take care as there may be delivery and other vehicles moving about.  For you own pet's safety, please put your dogs on leads as you approach the gateway to Ford House.

I hope you will bear with us as this is only just the start and, as the saying goes - you have to break eggs to make an omelet!

Video - Wisteria wrestling

The Wisteria has been taken down to preserve it and will be put back after the work is completed. Have a look at this video which is only a few minutes of the 6 hours it took to complete the task.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OelHk2deb2s&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Wrestling with a monster

Friday 8th April - A beautiful Spring day and the grounds are looking stunning.  The grass has had its first cut, the trees are coming into leaf and the tadpoles are swimming about in the pond.  Our 150 year old Wisteria, trained around three walls of the Coach House is just coming into bud, promising the best show of flowers since we rescued it a couple of years ago. But today it has to come off the walls so that the contractors can repoint the building. Colin, Tom and myself arrive ready to help David Redmore, landscape consultant extraodinaire. We set about cutting the ties and wires carefully and after a while the main branch on the cable end is free.  We hijack Kirsten, who is passing through the park and the five of us line up to man-handle the branch, feeding it through the gap in the hedge. Then its onto the main side wall, where the Wisteria is rooted - it has huge woody main branches and covers the whole wall.  It took a while to get all the ties and wires cut, but eventually we stand back as David eases it away from the building and we have a massive tangle on the grass. It was a bit like pic-a-stick trying to sort it out but eventually, stakes are hammered into the ground and we start to tie the branches together. David, sad that we will not see the flowers this year, has a flash of inspiration - lets make a living barrier  - at least we will have some flowers.  So we carefully tie it to stakes along the path - its about 30ft long! Once the building is finished we will start putting it all back and it should recover well over the next year or so!

We have lift-off!

The contractor's cabins have arrived on site. Quite spectacular seeing the first cabin being craned into place with a lot of yelling - 'left-a-bit' 'down-a-tad'. Once in place it was back down the drive to pick up another one which was placed on top - double-decker cabins! The electrician is busy hooking them up as I write this. Later today a tool-shed will arrive and then stairs and barriers and then it will be ready for occupation.
As usual at Ford Park, everything happens at once - as the first cabin was dangling from the crane, our neighbouring farmer bowled up the path with a shotgun on his shoulder asking about a dog reportedly worrying his sheep. We had volunteers and staff standing guard at all exits to prevent curious Day Service clients from getting in harms way. Other volunteers were down the bottom of the field with the golf-buggy and trailer, collecting clippings (or rather branches) from the laurel hedge on Ford Park Crescent which someone had cheekily donated to our community group. Kim was busy getting ready for a group of school children who were about to turn up to take part in an activity - and all this in a howling gale.
Now we have a lull in proceedings so its time for lunch before our Town Clerk and two army officers arrive to discuss an event taking place here on 7th May.  Ah well - its good to be busy!

Two steps forward

Reassuringly the first drawdown of money is now in the bank! We have finally managed to satisfy all conditions and provide the mountain of documents requested. Even at the last hurdle a phone call came through asking about an unknown covenant from the 1800s - 'has the building changed hands since then?' - well, Yes! Anyway alls well that ends well.  That's the first step forward.
Last Thursday, Landscape Architect, David Redmore met with the planning officer to discuss the natural play scheme. She seemed happy with our somewhat scaled down plans. Friday we met with the Coach House contractors to discuss removing the Wisteria (temporarily) so that they can repoint the building. We also discussed the play scheme and our contractors seemed happy to help. If we can co-ordinate these two projects carefully we will be able to shape the spoil from foundation excavations and the car park into its final position which will form a circular mound for our performance space. Another step forward.

Paperchase through treacle

9th March was the deadline I gave myself for submitting all the necessary documents to drawdown our grant/loan but here we are and I am still waiting for the signed contract, insurance form, VAT election letter and so on......and these are just the final bits of a massive jigsaw. Thank goodness we planted some trees for I am sure we have used up a whole forest on the paperwork produced for this over the past two years.  To be fair to our contractors, we haven't given them much time to respond, a situation forced on us by a mad government deadline. So today is a waiting game and I'll try and clear my desk ready for the next onslaught. Tonight I will be giving a presentation about our development projects to the Neighbourhood Forum meeting - 7pm at Bardsea Malt Kiln.

Ford Park - the start of a new era

Well we are nearly there! After two years of applications, writing copious amounts of guff, pouring over spreadsheets and generally getting stressed out over frantically moving goalposts, we are about to drawdown some major funds to develop the Coach House. There are still one or two things outstanding but we should have them sorted by Wednesday which, until 6pm last Thursday, was the deadline to submit our drawdown request.  Yes, even on the brink of signing a fixed price contract the following morning, we were told that the government deadline to drawdown and have spent/committed the funds by 31st March, 2011 was now relaxed due to some clever negotiations and an endowment account.

Hey, what the heck, as long as we get it - but its been a frustrating and challenging process and I am sure I have many more grey hairs! BUT I shouldn't harp on about the negatives as we are really lucky to be in a position to move our project on.  With so many voluntary groups in big trouble funding-wise, we are about to start a major project to develop the Coach House into a new community building with a Cafe/Pizzeria.  Running parallel to this is another project to create a natural play scheme, thanks to a Playbuilder grant which was cut last year but reinstated.  Of course we are going to make rather a mess on the field but the playscheme will be completed by the end of August so hopefully it will look wonderful by this time next year.  The Coach House project will start on 28th March and be completed in November with the Cafe opening early in 2012.  Keep watching this space for progress reports. Phew!