2022 funding
To date the Scout Group has been successful in securing the following funding:
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The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe Investing in Rural Areas |
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Eaglesham Scout Hall Project is part financed by the European Union to help support community resources in Eaglesham and Waterfoot |
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The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe Investing in Rural Areas £121,645 |
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£25,000 |
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£25,000 |
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£20,000 |
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£10,000 |
Fundraising
As noted in the “New Hall” section of the website, the cost estimate to complete and be able to open the hall is around £200,000. Since the completion of the “wind and watertight” stage, the hall project has regrettably stalled. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly and post-COVID, the work demands on the principle fundraisers for the group have increased and they are struggling to find time to research possible funding sources. Secondly, the research that has been undertaken is showing that as a result of the COVID pandemic, a number of charitable bodies are focussing on providing their funds to paying the wage and running costs of charities (revenue projects) rather than on capital projects i.e. buildings, like our project. A further challenge facing us is the spiralling cost of raw materials in the building trade and the difficulty to tie down what costs will look like over the coming months; our funding applications if successful, will deliver a fixed amount of funding, however, there is a danger that as prices rise this will not be sufficient for us to complete the project
That said we are pleased to advise that our local councillor Jim McLean with the assistance of local farmer Iain MacDonald have stepped in to take the funding challenge forward. We are hopeful that by the time applications are made and funding bodies make their awards, we will see progress resume in the spring of 2023
New Hall
Where are we now?
Well, we pulled the old hall down in December '19 to start building in January '20 and just as the first foundation works were completing, the world shut down due to the COVID pandemic. As if that was not a big enough challenge, at the same time and as a result of BREXIT, the £122k of European Union funding from LEADER would be lost if we did not spend the money by 31st December that year. If we lost that, we also lost the ERREF £36k and £20k Viridor of funding as they were dependent on match funding being in place. So, we had 9 months to turn an empty site into a wind and watertight building that our funders had agreed to support. We then faced the immediate challenge to find a project manager willing to take on a fixed price project, at a time when building material supplies were in short supply and prices spiralling, thankfully we were able to secure the services of KC Developments.
As we continued with the foundations, the state of ground was so bad and full of peat, we had to remove over 400 tonnes of earth and replace it with suitable material; the foundations and slab accounted for a 30% cost overrun on the budgeted figure. In addition to these challenges, the weather during the autumn of 2020 was exceptionally wet, yet despite all of this, a wind and watertight building was completed in 12 weeks, little short of a miracle! Overall the cost so far has been £225,000.
To summarise where we are then
- Scout Group has itself raised £52,000 towards the overall project, with £25,000 now available for match funding
- Over £210,000 raised from other funders
- We have built a wind and watertight building during the global Covid lockdown and completed that in 12 weeks!
- Defended ourselves and the project in angry confrontations with neighbours on site, on the phone or keyboard warriors on social media.
- The building is "out of the ground" almost all the cost uncertainty around construction is gone and we are now in the much more predictable internal fit-out and external landscaping cost phase.
- The highly experienced project management team that delivered the first phase, estimate completion of the project would only take 15 weeks, if the funds were available.
Where to now?
The estimated cost to complete is around £200,00, although will probably only increase with costs continuing to be pushed up by inflation and general shortage of supply. Securing the required additional funding is an enormous challenge, see the Fundraising section and we continue on that journey and having looked at when funders make decisions on their awards, would hope to restart activity in the spring of 2023.
