You may have caught our post on Facebook or Twitter about measuring up in the Water Tower. You may or may not know but our offices for the last 5 years have been a couple of rooms in the Linden’s portacabin – their onsite Project site office. One of the major disadvantages of being based in the portacabin (other than the extreme cold) is that it is in a restricted area and sectioned off from the development. Therefore, we have been hidden away, out of sight and inaccessible.
Our next temporary venue (a first floor steel container) is not going to be much more reachable, but we are delighted that we are making finally progress on an idea that was born over 3 years’ ago.
The Water Tower – iconic and towering majestically over Graylingwell Park– is set to become the new home of Chichester Community Development Trust. But this isn’t the best bit! We are creating a voluntary sector hub there. We are working in partnership with Chichester City Council and have been awarded a £20k grant to develop the space into the voluntary sector hub from Chichester District Council’s New Homes Bonus grant scheme. We are thrilled to be working with Chichester District Council to get this exciting project off the ground.
Alongside the space that we need for a few desks, there will be hot desks that can be hired by local charities and voluntary sector groups, home workers, budding charity start-ups that can’t afford an office yet. There will also be a cosy one to one space that can be hired during the weekends and evenings.
We will only have use of part of the Water Tower’s footprint (the Water Tower is the energy centre for the Graylingwell development) , so we are planning a mezzanine and thinking along the lines of clever space-saving design. It will be small… but perfectly formed.
And we really can’t wait. We can’t wait for locals to be able to pop in and share their thoughts and ideas. We can’t wait to share our space with local charities and entrepreneurs. We can’t wait for people to be able to find us!
We will post updates as and when there is news on this new space for the trust and community.
