Cloudesley Association - Minutes of Meeting
Date: 27th February 2018, 7pm - 8.15pm.
Venue: New River College, Dowrey Street, N1.
Chair: Amanda Gill
Guests:
• Susan Speece, London Diocese.
• Nigel Smith, Executive Head of NRC.
41 local residents attended.
Item 1: Data Protection Act
Further research on the Act is required but it is anticipated that Amanda will need to contact everyone to get their explicit consent to hold their details.
Item 2: New Neighbourhood Watch Scheme
The Association will sign up to the scheme as a Residents' association but everyone is encouraged to sign-up individually.
Item 3: The Church - Susan Speece
• Diocese took back possession of the Church in November 2017.
• Diocese has carried out emergency maintenance works such as clearing gutters.
• They appointed living guardians to look after the building and there are four living on site. In order to do so they had to install the fire protection measures.
• Trees: Diocese has agreed with LBI to reduce the crowns of the plane and lime trees and remove self-seeded sycamore right by the building. These works are to take place as soon as possible. They will also be developing a long term maintenance plan for the trees. There will be parking suspensions during the tree works.
• They currently estimate that the repair work will cost £6 million including fees.
• Emergency works to the west entrance and roof to make the building safe are expected to cost an additional £1 million.
• The building is currently scaffolded to catch falling debris in the interior and exterior.
• Priority are the West entrance and the turrets.
• Ptolemy Dean Associates has been appointed as conservation architect to oversee the works.
• Diocese doesn't have the funds to cover the work and needs to fundraise. An experienced fundraising person has been recruited. They are going to make applications to major grant funders including the Heritage Lottery Fund for the urgent works.
• They are also talking to potential charity partners about the long term use of the building, but nothing has been decided yet.
• The Diocese would like the local community's help in the following ways: 1/ Supporting the proposal, 2/ volunteers to help in the garden, 3/ Archive research, oral history, 4/ ideally a fundraising group.
• One resident commented that the Diocese needs to set a suitable legal entity to act as a conduit for taking the project forward. (i.e. Charity)
• In response to a query about the future use of the Church for worship, Susan explained that the Barnsbury Parish which includes the Church on the Corner needs to be involved in this discussion.
• Many questions were asked by attendees to either clarify the above or to make suggestions for funding and in particular to criticise what has happened in the past.
• An expression of interest form to support "The Cloudesley Challenge" will be available send in the next Association update to be completed and returned to Susan, either by e mail or by post.
Item 4: The Schools - Nigel Smith, NRC
• He is very pleased to be back on the site and with the build quality.
• The building contains there Primary PRU. It is part of a network of PRUs in the Borough.
• In the Primary PRU there are 20 pupils enrolled between the ages of five and 12. Worryingly there are more five and six years old proportionally.
• He emphasised that he wishes to see the school part of the local community and therefore very much welcomes to see the building being used for this meeting and he would like the building to be used for other activities, some for a fee.
• The school will now be the Polling Station for Barnsbury Ward.
• Questions raised by attendees: Many people were keen to find out about the agreement with the Celestial Church. Nigel explained that it was set up by LBI and is on a short term license basis. All paperwork has been checked out as part of the process. From his point of view, the income from such use is welcomed and necessary given the cuts to schools budgets.
