Update on Renovations 28th Feb 2025

Dear Supporters

Given the lack of activity on site at the Tabernacle, you’d be forgiven for thinking there hasn’t been much going on behind the scenes since our meetings and Open Days last year. This briefing note is to tell you what the Board has achieved in recent months.

Land Transfer

The major barrier to progress since we got the keys back from the contractor in 2022 has been the issue of land ownership around the Tabernacle.  The Trust has only ever owned the Tabernacle building itself.  Crossman Homes, the developers of the Masters Church flats, retained ownership of the strips of land around the Tabernacle and the old graveyard. When granting planning permission to Crossman Homes for the Masters Church development and the building of three new houses on the site, South Gloucestershire Council made it a condition of the permission that the graveyard and the land strips around the Tabernacle would be transferred to the Council before residents were allowed to move into the new properties. That transfer has taken much, much longer than we expected to be completed, but we finally got confirmation in December that the Council now owns the land.

In a separate agreement, the Council had already confirmed that the strips of land to the south and west of the Tabernacle would be transferred to the Trust as we would need this for the siting of services and bin storage.  We also needed to take ownership of a small amount of land in the northwest corner of the Tabernacle in order to build a new entrance and stairway to our planned first floor, and to have an access agreement with the Council regarding our use and overhang of the north path which will remain in Council ownership.

Several key steps in the Tabernacle development have been delayed because the Council were not prepared to move until the land ownership issue had been resolved.  Our frustration was that resolving the land ownership issue was largely in the hands of the Council, and we saw little evidence of any sense of urgency in reaching a conclusion.

Phase II Invitation to Tender

With the land ownership addressed, we were finally able to go out to tender on January 27^th.  Detailed plans and supporting documentation were sent to the five contractors who had previously been screened by the Council, and three of those contractors have already been on site to better understand what needs to be done.  The closing date for return of tenders is March 10^th, and we will then have to start on the difficult process of assessing the quality and scope of the responses against our available budget.  We are certain that we will face a large funding gap, so decisions will have to be taken regarding what we consider to be essential elements that must be included in  the next phase, and those elements for which we need to find additional funds for installing at a later stage.  At one point we had expected to open with a fully fitted café, raked seating and a full audio-visual and lighting installation.  Rising costs during the period of little progress will mean many of the fit-out items will have to wait a while.

Grant Applications

Several of our Trustees have spent considerable time in recent months applying for grants in an attempt to close the gap on our construction budget, meet some of our ongoing costs, and prepare the Trust for opening.  We were hoping that our bid into the Community Ownership Fund back in March 2023 would be successful, but this got delayed by the calling of the General Election.  We were waiting for the fund to reopen so that our bid could be considered, but at one minute past mid-night on December 23^rd we got an email to say that the fund would not be reopening.  Another major potential funder that we had put a bid into advised that they wouldn’t look at our bid while our Community Ownership bid was still in play.  We’ve effectively lost nine months through this process.

At the time of writing, we’ve got three application for funds in progress.

Gift Aid

We know that local donations won’t be large enough to address major capital expenditure, but they can help us meet our ongoing costs.  As a Trust we are responsible for the security and insurance of our building, and items such as our utility costs which seem surprisingly large considering how little is actually happening on site.

Last year, we registered under the Government’s Gift Aid scheme.  This allows us to reclaim an addition 25% on any donations we receive from a UK taxpayer.  This means that a donation of £100 is actually worth £125 to the Trust.  If you are a UK taxpayer, and you considering helping us with a financial donation, please ask for a Gift Aid declaration form.

If you have any ideas about fundraising activities and approaches, please let us know.

Trustees

Our business plan assumes that we will eventually set up a separate trading company to handle the commercial aspects of running the Tabernacle.  We will need to recruit Directors to serve on that company, and it is likely that some of these will also be Trustees so as to represent the interests of the Trust.  We have been aware for some time of the need to strengthen our current Board.  The Tabernacle will need to financially sustainable, and we therefore need suitably qualified Trustees in financial management, fundraising and events management to help us deliver a suitable programme.  If you are aware of anyone who we might approach, please get in touch.

Annual General Meeting

This year’s AGM will be held at 7.30 pm on Thursday March 20^th at the New Cheltenham Community Centre, Kingswood BS15 1TN.  It’s a bit early for cracking open the champagne, but there will be tea, coffee and biscuits, pictures and videos of what we’ve been up to, and a few examples of old documents that we’ve picked up.  There will also be some formal business to conclude which will be supported by an agenda published in advance.

The AGM is not a public meeting, but we will be inviting all our supporters like you who have agreed to be on our mailing list.  If you have any friends or neighbours who you think might be interested in what we are doing; please bring them along. If you are interested in becoming a Member of the Trust, please let me know.

Radio Bristol

They still talk about us on BBC Radio Bristol as occasional clips from last July’s Kingswood Special keep cropping up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j75547

 

Regards

Kim Scudamore

Secretary to the Trustees

Whitfield Tabernacle Trust

20 Verwood Drive

Bitton

Bristol BS30 6JP

Tel. 0117 932 2723

Email:   Kim.Scudamore@whitfieldtabernacle.org

Website:  https://thetabernaclekingswood.org/