Trust life
Using the now famous words of Victor Meldrew “I don’t believe it”, how can we possibly be so close to Christmas once again!
After the hectic period of compiling studies, planning and budgeting for the Coastal Communities bid, things have settled down a little. We now have to wait with fingers crossed until decisions are made. It could be a long few weeks!
While we have been working away on plans it is encouraging to see other businesses and organisations investing in the town. The Old Storehouse will be opening soon (the former Granary to most of us), and new shops are opening on Queen Street. We have many positive remarks about how lively our street is compared to other towns, so Amble must be doing something right.
One of the largest investments for the area is set to be the Blue Sky leisure resort planned for Chevington. The proposal has outline planning for the ski slope and hopes to go to full planning early next year. If successful in securing the investment, the resort, once fully functioning, will create approx. 700 jobs – what a difference that will make.
Another would be the sea energy plan – extracting gas from rocks (but not fracking!), this investment equates to £1billion pounds and will create 400 jobs with more created through supply chains. We could really do with the jobs now but all in all the future looks positive.
At last the work to the pavilion is coming to an end and as we had secured a small amount of funding from the lottery towards a celebratory event at the skateboard park, we decided to use this as an opening event as well.
I had wanted to ask Brenda and Ronnie Falkous to ‘do the honours’ as a small thank you for their tireless work in both keeping the pavilion clean and tidy and working with the football clubs. Unfortunately Ronnie wasn’t able to make it, but we cut the ribbon and took some photos of the exterior of the building so he knows we have eventually managed to carry out the work that has been planned for so long. We always get there in the end!
Once again the lantern workshops for the Torchlight Procession went really well. This year the theme was Christmas by the sea. It’s one of those events everyone seems to look forward to and this year we had more taking part in the parade than ever.
As always Santa graced us with his presence and this year we had a fantastic new location for him. Nick and Katie Spurr donated ‘Flow’ as Santa’s grotto. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped, organised, took part, supported and most of all enjoyed.
And finally it just remains to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and healthy prosperous New Year.
Julia & the Development Trust Team
julia@ambledevelopmenttrust.org.uk
