Desperate plea to save new £million community hub in heart of Norwich.
Scout volunteers have raised a desperate appeal for donors to help save their new community building. The 33rd Norwich Group is based on Jessopp Road in the Golden Triangle secured a grant of £915,609.00, from the Youth Investment fund for a sustainable Scout and Community Hub last August.
But due to rising costs the project will have to be scrapped unless £133,000 can be found before July 1st.
Lead Volunteer Andrew Parle says,
“This news has moved me to tears. We have worked so hard to make this happen. But unless we can find this money now we have no choice but to hand the grant back. Of course we will continue to offer our services to our local children; but we will have to make do with our current building, replacing things as and when we can. In these difficult times our young people need us more than ever, and our waiting list is growing all the time. We just want to be able to give the facilities they deserve.”
A 20% contingency that was included in the bid has been eaten up by rising inflation and now the grant funders have advised the project cannot go ahead without a further £90,000 of contingency funding. All in all the shortfall totals £133,000.
The group has already scaled down the project as much as possible to bring costs down. But no further alterations are possible without lengthy planning procedures and time has run out due to conditions of the grant. It stipulates that work must be complete by March 2025. Building contractors have given a deadline of July 1st for the project to begin in order for it to be completed within the deadline.
Andrew Parle adds;
“I am incredibly grateful to all those professionals and volunteers that have worked so hard to help us try and get this back on track. We have further applications in but we will not have the result of these until after the July 1st deadline which will be too late. We thought we had reduced the build cost to a reasonable level so this is just devastating news. We will not give up until we are told to stop. We need a small miracle”
The group is appealing for donations. Alternatively anyone who can help please get in touch with Andrew Parle 07974 254 293 Email: [email protected]