Phase 2 – Investment, More Heritage Restoration and Station Green Community Co-Design!

With Spring being suspiciously early and works about to recommence on our building and the big plot of land outside, we thought it a fine time to give you a little run down of the developments flourishing behind the scenes. Here goes people…

Heritage Restoration Investment

We originally started this project on the assumption it would be a long road to develop a full restoration programme for the old station and for us to tap up all potential funding avenues to support those dreams.

Whilst we’re by no means ready to say “Ta-da! It’s done!” we can be confident that thanks to a second round of additional investment support from Railway Paths Ltd along with Railway Heritage Trust we have been able to agree a package of works together which means we can do even more to the building from the outset.

What a good news day for the building and the high street. We’re very happy and it warms our heart to know there’s broad support to see the building coming back to be a transport hub for the future!  

So, with the good news, we can make things pretty darn good, inside and out much much sooner than we had phased/ planned!

Though to get to this stage and see the works drawn up to the spec we want has taken a little bit longer than expected, so there is a bit of a delay on fitting out our bar and cafe, but we hope to make up in good time. Will keep you posted on that.

Station South CIC development has also been delivered with funding support from Reach Fund and the Architectural Heritage Fund who continue to provide crucial funds to establish the building’s future purpose with the Station South team.  Oh look, we also made the it to the pages of the AHF annual report (showing off!)

This is really excellent news and we’re very pleased for the additional investment support in this heritage building with futuristic ambition!

Springtime Building Works

Coming up you’ll see another set of scaffolding going up, more brick pointing/ repair works to the rest of the building to make it look tip top. The big exciting thing is the frontage!

With the additional investment into the building the frontage can be sympathetically restored sooner than we anticipated.

The doors and windows will incorporate beautiful timber frames once more and the re-introduction of a traditional style shop front (with modern accessibility of course) for our co-working space entrance will also be on the agenda.  A bit like the picture below. How cool is that?

Then there’s getting a floor and plumbing and all the boring stuff that makes a building usable in there! So still loads of work to do…say hello to the new builders when they arrive on site very soon.

Station Green Works and Community Co-Design

And so, onto Station Green – our future jewel in the crown and current diamond in the rough of the project – all 800 sq metres of it!

We have appointed a wonderful, award winning Landscape Architects, ReShaped  ( check out this excellent bit of work here) to help us and the community realise our shared vision for the external space. We’ll be hosting a couple of community design events in the very near future to help develop the best urban garden design we can collectively muster! More details on venues and dates soon, (spaceship landing docks may be considered…only if eco-friendly) watch this space.

For the time being and we’re sure if you have passed it by, you would agree, it’s a shambles of brambles, litter and sharp, nasty things so before we can even get down to the fun stuff, we need to clear the site.

Never fear as we have a land clearance specialist on site this week to rid us of of the messy, fly tipped wildness and leave us with a blank canvas to work from! Hurrah DIGGERS!

TransPennine Express – Transform Grant Success – Thank You Voters!

We have BIG ambitions for our external space over the coming months and years and are seeking multiple ways to fund them as we speak but the great news is, you already helped us get on the soft landscaping ladder as we were voted top of the tops of all the 12 UK Wide projects for the TransPennine Express Transform Grant and have £5,000 to spend on Station Greening when the time comes! Thank You All. You just keep being great.

Volunteers – A Station South Shout Out?

Along with the growing volunteer list for future fix up days and garden fun, we’ve started to build up a great list of skilled volunteers to help us on this adventure. We’re putting a little shout out for two types of skilled volunteer who may be able to assist us with some of the Urban Garden preparation. The skills we’d love to hear from are:

• Land Survey Specialist
• Structural Engineer

Drop us a line if you’re up for giving us a bit of advice and support. We’ll love you forever!

That’s all for now folks. We’ll keep you posted on more news soon.