PTRC Centenary development build 2022

Aim

To significantly expand the external training areas of the club, and improve our ability to welcome disabled people.

About us

Putney Town Rowing Club lives in a big blue building on the edges of the tidal Thames, next to Chiswick Bridge in Mortlake.  The name comes from having started life under a pub in Putney exactly 100 years ago (Yes, this is our centenary year!!).

Our boathouse is a 2.5 story building, with 3 boatbays on the ground floor, a large central hall, changing rooms and a bar on the first floor, and a loft space above the bar which is a training space. We have a small balcony facing the river and to the side is a gated compound which houses the remainder of our fleet.

The club actively welcomes and encourages visitors and members from all parts of the community but we currently have a heavy gravel covering on our yard and no lift access to the first floor.

Our development project

We have put together a project to;

• Surface the yard for wheeled traffic
• Provide access to the first floor via a new lift that addresses an enlarged balcony that wraps around the northern end of the building.
• Provide new WCs on the ground level that includes an accessible WC and secure storage for items like engines.

Covid also taught us lots, and outdoor training/meeting space is really important - so surfacing the outside yard area will allow the gym to spill out into it and allow training to take place.

A lift will allow wheeled and mobility access to the first floor of the boathouse. Currently there are things we would love to run as a club that we can't - indoor rowing for example, that would benefit an adaptive audience. We cannot invite a wide range of disabled people to use our facilities for social events and/or hires. We are not anticipating becoming an adaptive club for wheelchair users (river access is tricky) but we have had athletes with visual,  hearing and mobility and have had to turn away community bookings because of a lack of wheelchair access. We like to operate as an Urban Village Hall.

The first floor hall is increasingly our bottleneck - we are often looking for a training space for up to 16 more ergs, stretching, warming-up, training bikes etc, and the space provided by the new balcony can provide this....amazing how rarely it rains!! :)

On event days (when we host many of the major head races) the kitchen cannot cope and we are looking for ways of serving from the existing kitchen - currently constrained by a bar-store. Wrapping the design of the balcony around the building allows further entrances to the bar area, and spill out areas where athletes can have their refreshments out of the hall.

Having the balcony overhang around the side of the building provides a new store area to house engines, bar store (removing it from the boathouse and the kitchen) and toilets in the yard area - no more running upstairs for a wee!!

We have planning permission in place and  professional team (of rowers!) in place and are assembling documents to go out to tender! Our aim is to start construction in April this year (2022) and complete in August this year!

Stretch Targets

This project is the second major development of the club (In 2012 we built a large new access into the river that is directly in front of the club).

Phase three is intended to address the changing rooms to the southern end of the building and develop the unused loft area above the existing changing rooms to expand capacity and provide accessible shower/changing facilities.

This phase will also address the long term carbon footprint of the organisation and above the store area there is a potential plant room. We are looking at how we could incorporate air source heat pumps and heat batteries to do space heating and water for showers (currently we store lots of hot water above the changing rooms - and this will get in the way when we want to develop that end.) 

So this is an opportunity to future proof the building.

This project successfully funded on 18th April 2022