New Village Hall

Hall Build – Week 06

| gareth

Last week’s wet weather meant some of the nice sharp edges to the foundation trenches were starting to crumble on Monday, so with all the big machines gone, it was hands to the shovels! By the end of the week though, the TRF team were making great progress and we now have shuttering and steal reinforcements in place, ready for concrete to be poured on Monday!

As per regulations, a short ceremonial dance was performed with the long red ducting pipe before installation, and we now have the permanent path for our final electricity supply in place!

Hall Build – Week 05

| gareth

A pretty wet end to the week cut work a little short for the heavy machinery this week, but not before Dunbar Plant had finished cutting out the full foundations footprint of the hall. We can now see clearly where all the rooms in the building will be! TRF will be back next week to dig trenches for the various services coming into the building, and to start shuttering and laying the metal reinforcements, ready for concrete to be poured into the foundations. Conduits, rebar, and timber already arriving on site for those jobs!

Hall Build – Week 04

| gareth

An exciting week, as our funders of the hall, CWP Energy, came to check out our progress! Ray and Eldon were pleased to be able to come and see in person what a real difference their community benefit funds are making to us.

TRF and Dunbar Plant have had a tough few days, battling rain and frozen ground, which has meant a bit of catch up work was required on Saturdays but we are back on schedule. The builder’s welfare huts are now plumbed in and just waiting on power.

The end of this week saw yellow spray paint mark out the final footprint of the hall and foundation trenches going in!

Hall Build – Week 03

| gareth

It’s been a muddy week of site prep, while hoping that the snow holds off, which thankfully, it pretty much did! TRF now have their bright yellow, on-site accommodation for the next year or so in place and just waiting on power and plumbing. The site is being roughly marked out for the location of the new hall and pipes are being delivered to be buried in the early stages of the works, that will eventually hold our power and internet cables, as well as heating pipes from our ground source heat pump!

Hall Build – Week 02

| gareth

Full demolition was completed this week. She was gone in the space of only a few hours! All waste material has been expertly removed by Dunbar Plant, and we now have a clean, flat space to start building in the new year! The playground is inaccessible at the moment, but will be opened up as much as work allows.

Tender replies received!

| gareth

We have now received all six tender responses from the contractors we submitted to. CSY have managed to make a summary table of the responses, showing the quote breakdowns “like-for-like”.

We have been in touch with our primary funders, Community Wind Power, as clearly, their view on choice of contractor and total cost is critical. Unfortunately, the contractor that built Abbey St Bathans’ hall, who were already well known to CWP, declined to submit tender for the project. However, we have plenty of other local contractors that come with recommendations from our architects and other sources!

The next stage then, is to decide on a first-choice contractor with input from CWP. We will then work with the chosen contractor to refine their quote to be as close as possible to exactly what we want for the final build. 

A specialist asbestos handling company is booked to survey the existing hall at the end of this week. Getting this survey done now will speed the demolition along, no matter which contractor we go with in the end. If any asbestos is found, it will be safely removed by specialists. 

Village hall plans out to tender

| gareth

CSY have gone to tender with 5 contractors

Five contractors, who expressed an interest in tendering for the demolition and construction of the new VH, have been sent a comprehensive tender document by our architects CSY.

All five are local to East Lothian and the Borders area.

OCA committee have already started holding site meetings with the contractors to ensure that they have all the additional information they need to produce their costed proposals.

Village Hall Planning Submitted!

| gareth

After a lot of time and effort spent, OCA are very happy to announce that the village hall Planning Application has been revamped and resubmitted!

You may already be aware that OCA took the disappointing decision to withdraw our previous Planning Application after some points were raised by East Lothian Council, which needed addressing in detail before our application was likely to proceed. We went back to the drawing boards with CSY, our architects, and went through a formal “pre-Planning Application” with ELC. This gave us a chance to get as clear an idea as possible of what ELC would like to see in a revised plan for our village hall.

Lots of iterations and a Local Place Plan later, and we now have our modified design committed to (electronic) paper. The changes are minor, in that the form and function of the design we all voted on is essentially unchanged. The hall now sits just over a metre further back behind the village green wall; and improved car parking, including an accessible parking space and footpath to the hall, are now formalised in the plans.

You can read the whole (now much more extensive!) document set here. The ELC Planning Application numbers are 24/00747/P and 24/00748/CAC for the new hall build and old hall demolition, respectively.