A group of volunteers in Ulverston are celebrating after buying the town’s old auction mart to turn it into a community building.
The Old Mart Group CIC raised over £400,000 to buy the Victoria Road building, formerly the DEL kitchen and bathroom showroom, to transform it into a community space called The Spot.
It will be a new home for the Ulverston Food Project from next year and renovations are planned to also create a small hall, meeting rooms and festival workshop space.
“We’re so excited and also relieved to get to this point,” said Zoe Mander, of OMG, and vice chair of the Ulverston Resilience Group.
“We started this process in 2023 with a Community Ownership Fund bid in our sights, but that Government fund was closed just as we were poised to submit the application.
“It felt like that might be the end of it but everyone rallied and we’ve had unbelievable support to pull off a win for Ulverston.
“The town’s had such a rough run of closures from Lanternhouse to the Parish Rooms, leaving everyone scrabbling for space.
“Now we get to make good the dream of having a new place bought by the community for the community, The Spot.”
The purchase was made possible with support from local businesses including High Winds, the community renewable energy society that runs five wind turbines above Ulverston.
John Millen, a director at High Winds, said: “High Winds were pleased to give a significant grant to The Spot as we saw a fantastic opportunity for linking our work of generating clean, local renewable energy high above Ulverston with supporting the community below.
“The team at The Spot really impressed us with their ambition to provide a new, much needed community space in the heart of our bustling and vibrant town. We look forward to seeing the transformation and its impact.”
It’s also had critical backing from CGP, the Broughton-based educational publishers.
Ulverston BID and Ulverston Town Council also supported The Spot with grants and 167 individuals raised over £5,300 via a Crowdfunder.
“We are so grateful to everyone who has contributed to make this happen and to all those who posted supportive comments too, it definitely helped keep-up morale,” said Jennie Dennett, Spot volunteer and secretary of the Ulverston Lantern Festival.
“No Community Ownership Fund grant means we don’t have the extra we were applying-for for renovations, so it’ll be a slower start than planned.
“The fundraising will march on behind the scenes and also via our Crowdfunder.
“But our founding tenant Digital Woodoo is ready to go, using part of the space to grow their Ulverston-born business making WikiHouse timber prefab buildings, as well as helping us to develop the space & cover the building’s costs.
“And we’ll be able to use the unrenovated space for rough stuff that can cope in our, presently, unheated space.
“Then we will, through graft and grant applications, build as fast as we can a new home for the Food Project and other support services plus multi-purpose space for recreation & festival workshops, meeting rooms, decent loos, a kitchen – in short putting back some of the infrastructure we’ve lost.”
Anyone who would like to get involved can become a Friend of the Spot via The Spot website or follow the project on Facebook.
An open day is being planned as well as work parties from April to start with the demolition and DIY.
