At the 13 January GCF meeting it was reported that funding applications had been made to the National Lottery Community Led fund for £27,857, to the Highlands and Islands Enterprise “Greening Community Assets” fund for £23,477, and Highland Council’s “Place Based Investment Program” for £20,900. Some of this £72,234 is requested for running costs, but most is for capital.
An initial “wet finger in the air” timeline for the project was also put forward at this meeting showing a projected completion date of 31 July 2022.
26 January 2022 the building warrant (21/01358/NDOM6) for refurbishment of the building interior and exterior, and the addition of an external deck was granted.
2 February 2022 Highlands and Islands Community Greening Fund were first out of the gate to confirm a grant covering 90% of the requested amount, a generous £21,129.
9 February 2022, Fort Builders started work on the building refurbishment.
17 February 2022 the National Lottery Community Led fund confirmed a grant of £27,857 for the first year plus the unexpected, but very welcome, bonus of an additional £14,680 funding for our second year of operations.
In February 2022 we also conducted a survey of the village residents to determine the new name for the community facility that we were creating. The survey offered the following options,
“The Jetty” followed by “The Hut” were by far the most popular choices. Of those respondants who made additional comments, one suggested “The Jetty Hut“ and offered the justification that “The Jetty on its own would be too specific to be correct, while The Hut on its own would be too non-specific.” Another suggestion very similar to this proposal was “The Pier Hut”.
Based on the feedback received, the GCF Trustees chose “The Jetty Hut” as the new name for the community hall and an application to formally change the building’s postal address was submitted.
While the naming survey and funding applications were in progress, we were also wrestling with a rather more prosaic problem. The Shorebase building had a live electricity supply but nobody knew who was paying the bill. Even when provided with the meter number, SSE Hydro were unable to identify the current account holder.
While it was no doubt tempting to continue with this financially advantageous arrangement we also needed to move the meter as part of the refurbishment process and this could not be done without the relevant customer account, MPAN and meter serial numbers.
MOWI were the obvious candidate for historical reasons, and when contacted they confirmed that their estates management team had conducted an asset review and independently realised that they were still paying the bill despite having transferred ownership of the building to Loch Shiel Jetties Trust. They had instigated a change of account holder from MOWI to LSJT.
As the organization who would be paying for the electricity, we then had to unpick this transfer so that ownership of the account came to GCF.
Once we finally had ownership of the account, we then embarked on the challenge of getting the meter moved.
Anyone who has had the misfortune to have to do this will know that it involves coordinating SSE Networks, SSE Hydro, and SSE Hydro’s meter installation subcontractor in an elaborate appointment-based dance, in the often forlorn hope of keeping the duration of the resultant power outage to a few hours.
8 March 2022, the meter was moved from the previous externally accessible box to its current location. It was also changed to a first generation SmartMeter (the installer did not have any second generation meters on hand).
So, by the next GCF meeting on 14 March 2014 we were able to confirm that two lots of funding were secure, and we also knew informally that Highland Council funding would be forthcoming once we had named the contractor for the work that was being funded by them. On the same day, concluding a short tendering process, the contract for the sewage treatment plant and the external deck was awarded to Coast Construction and this was communicated to Highland Council.
At the same meeting we were also able to report that work was continuing to identify and appoint suppliers for various services (fire alarm, broadband, AV etc.), the new address was now in the Royal Mail database, the problem trees were down, the wood had been distributed to villagers, and that the first electricity bill had arrived!
15 March 2022 the first instalment, £14,079, of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise Greening Community Assets grant was paid and gratefully received!
30 March 2022 the Highland Council Place Based Investment Programme confirmed their grant of £20,900.
8 April 2022 the first year payment of £27,857 was paid. The second year payment of £14,680 will be paid in April 2023.
3 May 2022 the second and final instalment, £7,050, of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise Greening Community Assets grant was paid.
11 May 2022 another GCF meeting at which we were able to report that the interior refurbishment work was almost complete and that the sewage treatment plant was in the ground, surrounded by concrete, and about to be connected to the building soil pipes. The concrete bulwark to shore up the Gabion baskets and provide a footing for the front stanchions of the deck structure has been poured and the steel for the deck structure is being fabricated with the intention to start deck construction at the beginning of June.
At this meeting we also tentatively committed to a first use of the building by the community council for their next meeting on 8 June 2022, and proposed and official opening date of 21 July 2022.
6 June 2022 the full amount, £20,900, of the Highland Council Place Based Investment Program grant was paid.
8 June 2022 the building refurbishment was sufficiently complete that we were able to host a meeting of the Glenfinnan Community Council. The toilet sinks and underfloor heating were not functional due to delays in receiving parts, but otherwise refurbishment was complete.
The main push in June and July was to get the external deck constructed. This was hampered by backlogs at the steel fabricator and the galvanizer/powder coater, but also by a late change in the design of the balustrade which re-set our position in those queues.
We had previously agreed that the deck balustrade would be steel post and wire construction.
Unfortunately Building Control had different ideas. Donald Donnelly pointed out a requirement in the Building Standards Technical Handbook 2019 – Non-Domestic, Section 4.4.2 Design of pedestrian protective barriers, which says,
“A protective barrier should be designed and constructed so that it cannot be easily climbed by young children. The provision of potential hand and footholds should be minimised.”
This guidance is also applicable to domestic installations, but strict compliance is more important, and hence expected, in a public building. Meeting this requirement would cost an additional £5015.
13 July 2022 we received the completion certificate for the sewage treatment plant, and on 22 July 2022 we received the completion certificate for the refurbishment work.
24 July 2022 to celebrate the completion of the refurbishment all residents were invited to come along and have a look at their new premises, which were formally opened by the SCIO chair, Ingrid Henderson who invited Charlie MacFarlane to symbolically cut a ribbon.
A hog roast and vegetarian option was provided by the Spitting Pig Company, and music was provided by The Glenfinnan Cèilidh Band. The weather wasn’t great, but nobody cared, the Jetty Hut was open for business!!
Unfortunately the budget took a hit in the closing phase of the project. Three unplanned costs, added a painful, but fortunately affordable £12,222 to the total bill.
These additional costs were discussed and approved at an ad-hoc meeting of the trustees on 30 June 2022.
For the record the breakdown of this extra spend was,
This brought the total capital / equipment spend on this project to
A total of £139,894 + VAT
The original cost estimate for this project was £118,277 capital, plus £7,880 for equipment, a total of £126,157, so we exceeded the original budget by £13,737 (~10%), but in justification of that, the end result is equipped to a significantly higher specification than was originally proposed.
The original planned completion date was 31 July 2022. Some minor snagging notwithstanding, we had completion just in time for the official opening day on 24 July 2022,
This was down, in no small measure, to the efforts and dedication of all our main contractors, Fort Builders, Coast Construction Management, and The Stage Group.
It now passes to the community to make full use of their new facility.