The Peter Danes Pavilion - Update

Like me, I’m sure everyone else is really excited about the new pavilion, but I also know you may have been hoping to see thing’s starting to go up before now. If you’ve been following the pictures up on the website you’ll have seen Bournes Projects have been able to clear most of the site – but we’re now at one of those frustrating parts of any building process, where we are waiting for things outside of our control. Normally the real world (covid, supply chains etc …) can get in the way of the best laid plans, and in our case we are currently waiting for EFDC to give Building Regulations approval for the planned foundations. Until we get that, the footprint of the new building can’t be set out ready to receive the concrete foundations.

The good news is that assuming we get this approval as expected next week, Bournes Projects are pretty much on track to get the foundations done and receive the steel framework as planned w/c Feb 7th. From then on I’m hoping everyone will be pleased and perhaps surprised at just how quickly the building goes up, although I will warn everyone that there’s also likely to be other periods where much of what is going on is behind the scenes rather than being immediately visible.

In the meantime there’s a lot of planning work we will be doing as a club. Some of this will involve the committee taking decisions that form part of the building work (such as the type of sliding doors we want, what cladding to have, what colour the interior walls should be painted etc …) and some will be thinking about how best to kit out the wonderful new space we are going to have. We know, for example, that the smart thing to do is not commit to any choices of furniture until we can stand in the near completed bar and get a proper feel for what will work best. However the fun bit over the next few months is figuring out what our options might be and trying to make sure we can afford them!

Anyway I’ll keep you posted on progress, and hopefully look forward to showing you around the Pete Danes Pavilion not too long after the cricket season is underway.

Darren Dack, member of Pavilion sub-committee