Hartlepool Sea Watching Observatory Discussion

[Jamie]

Hi Alistair,

as the club members cant post in the announcement section of the forum I thought it might be a good idea to start a discussion here on the obs and hopefully as it goes along the committee can post updates here to give all members a chance to comment on the design/features etc before they are written in stone and we possible create a very expensive white elephant.

My first question is what has happened to the initial plans and sketches that were drawn up as I think the club spent many 1000's of pounds getting these done. If they are still valid could you post them here so people can see where we are starting at?

I feel it is very important that all are kept informed of what will be the most expensive project the club has ever undetaken (last estimate I heard was a cost of £300,000 which I expect will rise with price increases). I know a lot of people (including me) disagree with spending so much on a seawatching shelter but if the club is determined to do it I think we need to be very careful we get it right

Jamie

[A McLee]

Hi Jamie,
Best to start with a bit of the history. The creation of an obs. was an item on the club's management plan several years ago and agreed as such. The whole idea was only possible as a result of PD Ports offering us a form of lease on their land below the lighthouse, when we lost the access to the old obs in the heritage battery emplacement close by. Ted went to a huge amount of effort to have a feasibility study performed which cost the club about £7 to 8 K - I recall. On the basis of this work, we were able to obtain estimates of costs for various optons of structural materials; reassure H B C Planning of the attractiveness of our obs in what is a conservation area; and importantly be a demonstration of our intentions to allow us to seek award (s) of funding bodies eg Heritage Lottery.
The design option selected by the trustees was I recall considerably over £300K. Whilst sums of this magnitude were awarded they we were informed that they would not be given to projects like ours, which were for a !00% capital item - the obs itself. We also discovered that the strings for community access , education and participation were onerous and as a club we could never fullfil them and consequently a failure to do so, would entail the grant being paid back to the provider. The trustees agreed this was not a relationship the club wanted to be in, and we ceased to consider any third party funding and the associated strings attached. The curtain was drawn at the last trustees' meeting on  tis course of action.

So, what now? If we wanted independence of ownership we would have to fund it ourselves and indeed we had the means , provided the design and construction was modest yet practical. We do have money formally designated for the obs and as a charity we cannot simply accumulate money without a reason unless it is defined in our charitable objectives. Dave  Nelson and I have already some ideas of what we could have built, but we do not have a monoply on them, and my appeal for input posted in the club's announcement section this morning was an attempt to get some players and contributors together to have an uninhibited discussion  on the conceptual aspects of the obs which could be taken forward to PD Ports and Hartlepool Planning Dept as an opening gambit. What I was not seeking was an online discussion on design for the club members generally. I believe such a course of action would be a nightmare!
Alistair

[Jamie]

Hi Alistair,

The news that we have formally abandoned the £300K Obs is news to me so I suspect that it is news to a lot of people as I suspect it has not yet been published anywhere (ie the newsletter).

Are there any ground rules for the new one (ie is it still planned to be within the lighthouse complex) or are you just looking at something like a simple shelter where people sit now maybe with a raised bit of ground so more people can see at once.

If this is true I think the number 1 vote would be to get the cannon moved out of the way.

Regards,
Jamie

[A McLee]

Jamie.
The abandonment of the earlier plan was only agreed at the last trustees' meeting some 2 weeks ago. I saw no point in putting it in the newslatter as it would merely prompt a series of questions about what are we planning to do then which we were not in a position to answer- just as is happening now.
Ali

[A McLee]

Good people! Apart from a very helpful response from an individual on the matter of artistic impressions of a notional external design, I have heard nothing from the old salts who used the old battery site when it was the obs. Surely you recall the benefits and the short comings of that structure and wish to share them? As I said before all the clun requires at present, is to get a group of you around a table and talk generally on the basic concepts of the design based on personal experiences.
Thanks - in anticipation.
Alistair McLee

[Jamie]

Count me in...

[Graeme J]

Me too!

Graeme Joynt

[A McLee]

Thank you both. I shall include you in the communications. Also when we have a larger tally of people we can have a meeting ( Saltholme, Kingfisher room?) and share views on the requirements and past experiences.
Alistair

[Ted Parker]

Hi Ali,

As the original instigator of this project during my Chairmanship, I assume you would be aware of my interest in being involved in any future discussions about the observatory project.

Whilst I'm naturally disappointed that the original scheme has been abandoned by the Trustees for valid reasons, I think we should go for the next best, much lower cost option, possibly along the lines of a fabricated, two-tier Phil Stead Hide type approach, though obviously the design will need to reflect that the site is in a Conservation Area. and will still need to conform with Building Regulations and Planning stipulations.

The human and fnancial resources TBC put into the original Feasibility Study were essential.   Anybody involved in developing and managing a project knows that the starting point is always to assess the feasibility of your project in terms of viability, cost, location and constraints to development.  Our Feasibility Study included a professional topographical survey of the site, information on underground services, details of land ownership and the telecommunications mast, input from Hartlepool Planning Department and a series of costed options which appraised various designs, materials, construction techniques and cost.  It also took the burden of much of the laborious work involved off the shoulders of those who were already fully committed working for the benefit of the Club.  One of the largest capital costs was the inclusion of a lift for disabled access to the upper floor, which we had to include or we wouldn't have got Planning Permission. 

Anyway, I for one fully support the project - anything is better than sitting out in the cold, cowering en masse behind a wall looking through a sea of heads (pardon the pun!), as we do at present.

Ted Parker

[A McLee]

Thanks, Ted I knew I could rely on you to be a player. I shall shortly email you and the others who have expressed an interest with a view to a meeting at a mutually convenient time. Many of the issues you mentioned have already been covered in the initial feasibility study and recently I have resolved a few new ones which are pertinent to this newer proposal of a hide design.
Ali

[A McLee]

Thanks again to the sea watching devotees who came, or forwarded their comments, to the meeting yesterday at Saltholme. Dave Nelson and I have now been able to draw up a list of requirements for users of the planned Hartlepool observatory and were also able to broadly outline an affordable design and artist's impression of a proposed structure, in situ.
Our next task is to run the imformation before the club's trustees for their approval and alerting them to the likely requirements of third parties ( Hartlepool B C and PD Ports ). If sanction is given to proceed by the trustees, the club can move onto the next phase and involve these bodies and strart hardening up on the details of design and installation.
Alistair McLee

[A McLee]

At the present, it looks as if we shall be going forward with a roughly 10 m long, single decker obs. and because of the 2 m high fence already in place, the structure will have to be elevated about 1 m from the existing ground level. This will in turn require a ramp for disabled access to be made and at the moment I am seeing what the minimum costs for this will be and indeed what design latitude there may be for what is essentially a structure used by a private club on private land. We shall see but the cost of disabled access will be considerable in itself.
Once some budget prices have been firmed up for the trustees, the next step is to have an artists impression drawn and presented for approval to PD Ports and equally importantly to the conservation department in H B C, as the site is an area of conservation. Until these hurdles are overcome it is pointless in producing detailed drawings to submit for the actual planning process. PD ports have told me they are expediting the removal of the redundant radio mast which will allow the obs to be ca 10m in length.
A McLee

[A McLee]

An application for outline planning permission is now lodged with H B C Planning and the club hopes to hear in the next couple of weeks. There is no requirement I am told for building regulations to apply and thus, strictly speaking, there is no requirement for any disabled access to be installed. I feel strongly that it would be quite wrong to adopt this stance, so a quotation for a functional, disabled access facility is being sought from the obs. fabricators. We await word from the site owners P D Ports on those aspects of the project which lie within their domain.
Alistair McLee

[A McLee]

An article will be appearing in the August newsletter on this subject, along with pretty pictures.
Alistair

[Keith Ryan]

I was just looking at the conditions tonight, not bad for a bit of sea-watching, but the rain put me off. I know the early Teesside birders used to use the Bandstand area and were a hardy lot but an obs would be nice to have again.