It has been a busy time for the Old Town Quarry project!
It is 3.5 years since the original plan was conceived for the Town Council to take on the Old Town Quarry site. And it is now 12 months since the application to the former national government’s Community Ownership Fund, as part of the original Levelling Up programme, was submitted and then successfully funded.
There has been a lot of hard work happening since the grant was agreed in December 2023 and there is a lot more work to do before the end of the Community Ownership Fund project.
The key milestones achieved so far are:
• Submitting and getting full planning permission from NSC for the refurbishment and renovation work of the two main onsite buildings
• Recruiting me as the Old Town Quarry Project Manager – I joined the Town Council in March 2024 and I will be working on the Old Town Quarry project until March 2025.
• Completing a range of ecological surveys at the site to make sure that the wildlife residents are well and are being considered in any plans for the Quarry moving forward
• Successfully transferring the lease from the Quarry site from NSC as the landowners to the Town Council as the site leaseholders, for 35 years.
• Successful procurement of a build contractor to undertake the renovation and refurbishment of the Quarry site buildings
• Setting up and running a wide range of community engagement events to ensure that there is input and feedback from local residents, community groups, voluntary and community organisations and other potential partners and stakeholders.
The Quarry project is a community ownership project – it is all about ensuring that the Quarry will be a sustainable and successful community asset, supported by the Town Council but ‘owned” and looked after by the Weston community as a long-term viable community-led space for the town.
The transfer of the lease was delayed slightly this year so work on the site could not start as planned in the summer the build contractors were appointed in July, so now the pre-build process has been completed, the build work is starting on Monday 21st October!
Local residents in the Hillside ward will be notified by a letter drop before the building work starts so they are aware. And as the Quarry will be a closed construction site from 21st October, site visits and tours will not be allowed unfortunately until the build work is complete.
The build programme is due to run into next year, and we will keep you up to date on progress over the next few months.
This is an amazing opportunity for the Town Council and the whole of Weston and we welcome residents and local groups and organisations keeping up to date with how things are progressing, getting involved however they can, and becoming part of the developing community programme that we would like to be operational when the Quarry site re-opens.