Fundraising has begun to buy an Ulverston building for £500,000 so it can be transformed into a community hub.
It is hoped the Old Mart on Victoria Road can become a focus for people.
Zoe Mander, chair of the Ulverston Resilience Group and the newly-formed Old Mart Group, said: “Ulverston’s lost so many spots we desperately need a new one.
“The parish rooms have gone, we lost Lanternhouse, the Town Hall and who knows if our purpose-built library will ever reopen?
“In all nine venues have closed leaving groups scrabbling for space. It feels like if we don’t come together now and make something new, a lot of the things that make Ulverston’s community so strong will fall over.”
The group, including members of the Ulverston Table Tennis Club, Ulverston Food Project, Lantern Festival and the Resilience Group, are working to raise £500,000 to both buy the building and fit it out with wooden ‘interior pods’.
“We’re working with an exciting Ulverston company called Digital Woodoo to transform the building in a cheap and sustainable way,” said structural engineer Simon Wand, a trustee of Ulverston Food Project and the new group.
“Digital Woodoo need space to grow so the idea is they will be a founding tenant, using their CNC machines to create modular units within the Mart building for groups to use that are affordable to heat and maintain. We hope to be a real trailblazer, showing how big buildings like this can be brought back into use.
“People will also be able to work with Digital Woodoo, using their cutting machine for their own projects, like creating WikiHomes, a cheap way of building using wooden sections that slot together.”
A range of community-focused support services, including the Ulverston Food Project, are also hoping to find a permanent base to provide support, care and friendship to those who need it.
The large building, most recently used as a kitchen showroom, can also be a much-needed space for indoor sport. There’s a hall big enough for the Ulverston Table Tennis Club to set out its eight tables.
When those are folded away, other sports and arts groups can use it, like Ulverston Lantern Festival, which has struggled to find adequate workshop space since the demise of Lanternhouse.
The aim is the huge space will also be a long term home for the Ulverston Food Project to expand its support, redistributing surplus food as well as offering cookery sessions.
Plus there would be room for another small hall, storage, meeting rooms, changing rooms, toilets and a kitchen.
“We want the building to be an accessible, welcoming, multi-purpose space to as many people as possible,” said Paul Galley, secretary of the Old Mart Group.
“If we can pull this off, we’ll increase the availability of opportunities for people to take part in sports, social and art activities and have a massively-positive impact on the health, wellbeing and resilience of our community.”
The group is now working on a bid to the Community Ownership Fund which needs to be submitted by the end of May.
It’s asking anyone who’s struggled to find space to hold community activities to share their experience and tell the group how they’d like to use it.
Email thespotulverston@gmail.com. A Crowdfunding campaign will also be launching to support the bid.
