- Joined
- Dec 27, 2003
- Messages
- 44,654
Long'un!
I went along to a meeting in the village hall the other day regarding a lake in the village. Its somewhere that all the old villagers knew about and used to be a regular haunt for kids "back in the day" It's a couple of acres of land which is the lake and some mixed woodland. Loads of odd bits of Victorian decorations, even an old dog graveyard.
The lake has always been there and was part of the old manor house and grounds that got pulled down in the 60s to make a couple of streets of identical houses. In the 90s The lake became part of the golf course that is next to the village. Later on the land near it also got developed so there is no way of actually getting to it any more unless you cross one of the holes on the course or cross some private land that is occasionally used to hold livestock. The owners of the land have agreed to allow access through their field, on the basis that people don't take the piss and if they do hold livestock that any dogs are kept on a lead at all times and that they can close access with reasonable notice.
The lake itself isn't used for anything and has been left to silt up and go to ruin, trees have fallen across the lake, what victorian architecture there is left has pretty much collapsed and the area is just overgrown and a complete mess.
A few years ago the golf course offered the land to the parish council who turned it down, they didn't have the resources available to clean it up, let alone manage it. My sister and a few others have started looking into gaining access to it for the village and have made contact with the owners of the golf course, they have provisionally said that so long as there is no access to the golf course they might be willing to allow people to use it. they have no use for it because of its location and access issues.
Anyway, I turned up to the meeting only having the intention of putting my name forward for any clearance work and so on, I have many childhood memories of pissing about at the lake, swimming, camping etc I would love to see it used again. At the end of the meeting I left as a member of the committee.
Basically what came up through some research done by others is that we can't just tidy it up and that's that. We would need some sort of public liability insurance and the cost of dredging it would be in the region of 10-20k that's before we even get onto clearing the fallen trees and sort the wood out, loads of rotten branches etc. There is loads of interest from various groups in the village, the school would love it as its 5-10 minutes walk away and the cubs/scouts have said they could use it for camping and water activities.
Has anyone had any experience of setting up a small charity for something like this? Or know of any bodies we could contact regarding grants and so on?
Also, presumably the lake itself would have to be legally handed over to some sort of trust? The golf course have implied that they would flat out refuse to hand it over if there was a hint of any profit being made from it and any contract written up would cover that sort of thing. However It may be possible that we could offer the lake and land for private use occasionally to help cover the costs of insurances and upkeep.
I went along to a meeting in the village hall the other day regarding a lake in the village. Its somewhere that all the old villagers knew about and used to be a regular haunt for kids "back in the day" It's a couple of acres of land which is the lake and some mixed woodland. Loads of odd bits of Victorian decorations, even an old dog graveyard.
The lake has always been there and was part of the old manor house and grounds that got pulled down in the 60s to make a couple of streets of identical houses. In the 90s The lake became part of the golf course that is next to the village. Later on the land near it also got developed so there is no way of actually getting to it any more unless you cross one of the holes on the course or cross some private land that is occasionally used to hold livestock. The owners of the land have agreed to allow access through their field, on the basis that people don't take the piss and if they do hold livestock that any dogs are kept on a lead at all times and that they can close access with reasonable notice.
The lake itself isn't used for anything and has been left to silt up and go to ruin, trees have fallen across the lake, what victorian architecture there is left has pretty much collapsed and the area is just overgrown and a complete mess.
A few years ago the golf course offered the land to the parish council who turned it down, they didn't have the resources available to clean it up, let alone manage it. My sister and a few others have started looking into gaining access to it for the village and have made contact with the owners of the golf course, they have provisionally said that so long as there is no access to the golf course they might be willing to allow people to use it. they have no use for it because of its location and access issues.
Anyway, I turned up to the meeting only having the intention of putting my name forward for any clearance work and so on, I have many childhood memories of pissing about at the lake, swimming, camping etc I would love to see it used again. At the end of the meeting I left as a member of the committee.
Basically what came up through some research done by others is that we can't just tidy it up and that's that. We would need some sort of public liability insurance and the cost of dredging it would be in the region of 10-20k that's before we even get onto clearing the fallen trees and sort the wood out, loads of rotten branches etc. There is loads of interest from various groups in the village, the school would love it as its 5-10 minutes walk away and the cubs/scouts have said they could use it for camping and water activities.
Has anyone had any experience of setting up a small charity for something like this? Or know of any bodies we could contact regarding grants and so on?
Also, presumably the lake itself would have to be legally handed over to some sort of trust? The golf course have implied that they would flat out refuse to hand it over if there was a hint of any profit being made from it and any contract written up would cover that sort of thing. However It may be possible that we could offer the lake and land for private use occasionally to help cover the costs of insurances and upkeep.