Thanks to years of hard work by local people, and now a major sponsorship boost from local company Tarmac, villagers in Tideswell are counting down the days to the opening of their new community venue – the Fountain Square Church Hall.
The Church Hall is being established in the newly renovated Fountain Square Church and provides Tideswell with the much-needed accessible village hall facility that it has never had. The project has come about through a partnership set up in 2010 between Tideswell Methodist Church and Tideswell United Reformed Church. Funds from the sale of the United Reformed Church were allocated to renovate and extend the church building, but in order to complete the plans and make the building as versatile as possible, the project team needed funding for the kitchen. That’s where Tarmac stepped in.
The company operates several sites locally including Tunstead, Hindlow and Ballidon, but it is thanks to the company’s national Landfill Communities Fund* that the Tideswell project team has received this boost – almost £30,000 to cover the cost of installing a sophisticated kitchen to cater for all sorts of events.
Anthony Gill of the project team says: “Getting this project off the ground and progressed has been a massive team effort by all sorts of people in Tideswell. The whole village was invited to contribute at the project design stage – a true community venture. This funding from Tarmac is ‘the icing on the cake’!
“We are now starting to really see the building take shape and can imagine the many different events that will take place here – from fitness classes to community theatre, toddler groups to retirement lunch clubs. We will finally have a welcoming, well equipped and accessible building available for the community to use seven days a week.”
Andrea Magro, the general manager of Tarmac’s energy recovery business, Sapphire, went along to see the project for himself. “We are pleased to have been able to supply the final piece of the funding jigsaw for the Tideswell project. In order to make sure the hall could host as many different types of events as possible, they needed to install a kitchen which could cater for them. I am looking forward to coming back to see the building complete, the kitchen up and running and the villagers enjoying the benefits of it.”
It is hoped that all building and renovation work will be completed in time for Christmas 2018. The superb professional standard stainless steel kitchen has been designed and will be built in Sheffield by family firm Fox Catering Equipment Ltd. It will contain top quality equipment centred around a versatile Silverlink Range cooker with a stunning ventilation / extraction canopy manufactured by Fox specifically for this site. The kitchen will have the capacity to easily cater hot or buffet style food for the many different community users in Tideswell.
*The Tarmac Landfill Communities Fund (or Landfill Tax Credit Scheme as it was formerly known) enables landfill operators like Tarmac, to donate part of their annual tax liability to enrolled Environmental Bodies for a verity to approved community and environmental projects. Landfill operators can reclaim 90% of their contribution as a tax credit which means the remaining 10% must be provided either by them or an independent third party. Through the fund Tarmac donates around £1 million each year to community projects throughout the UK. The fund is open to applicants who meet the strict criteria for projects delivering community benefit. For more information please go to www.entrust.org.uk
Picture caption: Left to right: Checking over the plans at the site for the newly funded kitchen – Jill Whitnell from Fountain Square Church (who will be one of the people at the forefront of using the kitchen); Andrea Magro, Tarmac’s energy recovery business General Manager; Ben Senior of Fox Catering Equipment Ltd (who have designed the kitchen); and Anthony Gill of the Fountain Square Church project team.