News and PR

Update from our Chair – Alan Mosley

I am delighted to welcome you to this first edition of our revamped Newsletter and with it comes my apologies for not keeping in touch recently.

In May we were delighted to hear that the Friends had played a very prominent part in the project’s £12.1M bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund gaining a “first round pass” and that the partnership had been awarded £465K to develop the bid for final submission in March 2013.
The Friends also secured an English Heritage Capacity Building grant and there is great confidence that a £6M bid to the European Regional Development Fund will be successful.

The current funding has enabled the Friends to appoint a full-time Manager, Lisa Cowley and a half-time Development Officer, Fay Bailey. Both are proving to be excellent appointments and indeed, you can be certain of receiving better communication in future as Lisa will take over responsibility for organising future newsletters.

Elizabeth Perkins has been appointed by Shropshire Council as the overall Project Manager and a number of consultants have come on board to provide proposals and plans.

Notable among these is Marion Blockley who will soon present recommendations for an interpretation scheme, an activity plan and a business plan for the public areas. You can find out more about her plans and how you can influence them over the page.

The Friends are working with Marion and the Design Team on planning for the substantial public access areas which we will take responsibility for.
As well as all this planning for the regeneration of the Flaxmill Maltings, we are running more exciting projects and activities than ever. You can find our more over the page.

All in all there is fabulous progress and I thank you for your ongoing interest and support. Please get in touch if you would like further information especially if you are able to volunteer your services.

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

Alan