Background to the project

When Kay Yuill was Commodore back in 2002 she started to undertake strategic planning for the Club, surveying the members to identify whether the Club’s facilities should be developed and if so how. At a similar time it was becoming apparent that the stresses caused by the floating pontoons being cantilevered off the Club were causing the veranda to become distorted and its structural integrity reduced. The result of the exercise was two planning applications:

1. For an extension to the Clubhouse platform 3m towards the river and 10m south with an expanded set of changing rooms and an additional club lounge. New pontoons located by piles plus a new access ramp were also incorporated.


2. A replacement dinghy launching ramp, 2.5metres wider than the existing ramp.

Both applications were granted in October 2006. Tenders were sought for the work detailed in the planning permission and resulted in responses of around £600k for the complete work, way beyond the Club’s reserves. In order to reduce the outlay it was decide to complete the project in phases:

1. Extend the veranda 3metres toward the river and install marina pontoons located by piles to reduce the stresses on the Club
   
2. Replace and extend the dinghy launching ramp
   
3. Improve the changing rooms
   
4. Extend the Club veranda south by 10metres.
   

The planning rules are that a project must be started within 3 years of the grant of planning permission or the permission will lapse. However once started the planning permission will extend indefinitely. It was important to start the veranda extension and the launching ramp replacement by October 2009 when the planning permission would lapse.

Fixed price tenders received in 2008 even for the Club veranda extension plus pontoons were around £250,000; beyond the Club’s financial reserves. Grant applications were made to the Foundation for Sport and the Arts and Sport England; neither was successful. The Committee felt that the only viable way to proceed was for the Club to employ a local contractor, Tam Grundy, to undertake the piling and some of the heavier joinery using Working Party labour to complete the veranda.

There was therefore a great deal more work to be done by Club members as all the materials would be specified and bought by the Club rather than a contractor. In February 2009 the Committee authorised the spending of £130,000 on the first phase of the project, the extension of the veranda by 3metres towards the river, plus pontoon piles and some replacement pontoons, with work to start in September 2009 before the planning permission expired.

All systems go then, spreadsheets were refined with new quotes for large items, and a source of good large size timber was sought.

Simon Shaw