Following on from my AGM announcement that, after some invaluable professional advice and hard work from within our own membership, a new 30-year lease has been agreed with the Council. This is a significant milestone and now allows our club to consider our long-term future at Nuns Road.
We have two particular infrastructure challenges to consider; the suitability of our playing and training surfaces to cope with the ever-changing weather patterns together with increased membership numbers and aging clubhouse facilities that are costly to maintain. Neither are a quick fix, but we need a sustainable strategy to address both issues.
We have already fully engaged with the RFU Facilities team together with the Community team at the Council to brief them on some initial thoughts for potential further development. The help of both will be invaluable.
Our site is not without its challenges being used for landfill some 60 years ago so there is detailed ground investigation works required to establish what may or may not be possible. An all-weather playing and training surface has to be an option, and the above works will provide guidance as to the most appropriate location within our site and allow winter training to return to our club. This is our immediate focus.
With this knowledge we can then plan with greater confidence and address the subsequent challenges of funding all of the necessary planning criteria.
In the meantime Rugby goes on and I am pleased to report we have had some partial funding from the Council CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) fund to help with all things floodlights and have just placed the order with our contractor to change all of our current floodlights (pitch one and training areas) to better and more economical LED-lighting with this work planned to be completed over Christmas or very early in the new year.
We have also completed major works to the kitchen, the hot water provision for the showers, general drainage upgrades (including the male showers), new flooring for the showers and essential electrical works. These works have been funded from the clubs own financial reserves.
Should you wish to discuss anything, the committee are always available via the website contact’s page.
Steve Barrow
