At last night's meeting at the Misty Moon Gallery, James Jennings (Chair of the Ladywell Tower Trust*) outlined progress towards bringing the Ladywell Baths building ('The Playtower') back into use. This, he stressed, was a long-term project!
Council and English Heritage money would shortly be spent on weatherproofing, though as much as £6m might ultimately be needed fully to restore and renovate the building. Whilst the Heritage Lottery Fund might give part of this, other sources of funding were being explored -one option being to secure a capital reciept by selling part of the site for development.
Key elements in the overall strategy are community use and income generation as both are needed to ensure the longer-term viability of the project.
As yet the building is still in Council ownership, but all the signs suggest the Council is keen to get the building 'off its hands'. Whether the Trust takes the building freehold or leasehold has yet to be determined.
Watch this space for updates . . .
Robert Sheppard
* The Trust is a partnership between Volunteer Centre Lewisham, Lewisham Disability Coalition, The Tabernacle and Voluntary Action Lewisham. LVIG's very own Vice-Chair, Tony Rich, is a community trustee.
1 comment:
Making the building weather proof will be quite a big advance on the current state of play and would at least stop the building from deteriorating further whilst further sources of funding are sought.
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