New
Arley Community Centre
for
the PCC of St Michael’s Church
 In
2008 we were appointed to write the business plan for a new community
centre proposed for New Arley, a somewhat isolated mining community in
North Warwickshire.
Plans had been drawn up to attach it to the village church and a stage
one approval from the BIG Lottery had been received. The work involved
working with the appointed design team to ensure a deliverable solution
along with the preparation of realistic financial projections of use by
a number of different organisations, and for a number of different
purposes.
The
assignment also involved some training of local people offering to
become directors of the company set up to run the new centre. There was
also the need to structure the relationship between the existing church
organisation and the new community centre in such a way that both felt
valued and were able to contribute constructively to the process and the
ongoing need to achieve financial sustainability.
The
application was successful, winning some £400k in grant aid. The vicar,
Peter Allen wrote on receiving news of the grant:
“Many thanks for
your congratulations and even more thanks for the tremendous help you
gave in training and the preparation of the Business Plan - and for your
support in so many ways, not least in getting the costs back to sensible
levels!
Without yours
and John's help I doubt very much that we would be were we are today.”
As the picture
shows the scheme is now on site and due to open in October 2009
Key
lessons demonstrated by this project:
- Training and
involvement of the community from an early stage
- Careful briefing
of the design team and on-going management and control of the design
process
- Realistic
financial projections
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