6 September 2013

Members of St Agnes Sports Club are delighted to announce the commencement of their project to build new changing facilities at Enys Parc St Agnes. Over the past 2 years a small working party from St Agnes Sports Club has busily pulled together to consult with member clubs and players at the Sports Club (St Agnes AFC, St Agnes RFC, St Agnes Netball Club, St Agnes Gig Club and St Agnes Boxing Club). A need was identified to replace the existing changing facilities. The old changing rooms were dated and included a communal shower room, shared toilet facilities and only one official’s changing room and no longer provided a facility that could cater for the growth in sport at the club including the increasing participation of male and female players, as well as boys and girls.

With the volunteer help of George Kimmins initial plans were drawn up, submitted and approved to replace the existing block with a new building, which met with the requirements of the governing bodies of St Agnes AFC (The FA) and St Agnes RFC (The RFU). The building project went out to tender as part of a major grant application process to fund it with the cost in excess of £250,000 to complete it.

St Agnes Sports Club are thrilled and grateful to have been awarded the following grants towards their project so far: Football Foundation £100,000, RFU £30,000, Inspired Facilities £50,000 and Cory £10,000. The rest of the project will be funded from the within the member clubs and via an interest free loan obtained from the RFF and the Sports Club is also very grateful to St Agnes Parish Council and the Pennon Group for their support.

As soon as the Sports Club received the green light to commence the project volunteers from within stepped up to dismantle the existing wooden building. It was taken apart section by labelled section as it is hoped the main part of it can be reassembled elsewhere at Enys Parc as a storage facility. The diggers arrived on site and all was going well until the final part of the footings were being prepared when a potential mining issue was discovered at the very far end of the site. With the supervision of a mining engineer and a bigger digger being brought in extensive digging to a depth of 6 meters revealed the existence of not just one but two unmapped mine shafts within the site. The shafts have now been plugged and a plan to raise the end of the building from the mine workings has been made including the positioning of piled concrete rings to bring the footings to the same level as the rest of building. Members of the Sports Club are frustrated, but not disheartened by this expensive unexpected turn of events and hope to still complete the new building by the end of November as intended. Further fundraising is now required and planned.

When completed the new facilities will provide four new changing rooms, each with their own showers and toilets and two new official’s changing rooms also with their own toilet and shower. The new build will also provide an ambient disabled toilet/shower room with baby changing facilities accessible from outside. There will be a further disabled toilet with two new toilets accessible from inside the club house, which will enable the removal of the existing ladies toilets to create a bigger area in the club house. The plans also provided a greatly improved and enlarged kitchen, which will now also be accessible from outside as well as within.

St Agnes Sports Club members are very grateful to all the volunteers and contributors who have supported so far in every way. Neil Cotton on behalf of St Agnes Sports Club commented "We are so pleased to finally be commencing our building work and look forward to our member clubs and the wider community benefitting from our fantastic new facilities once finished". Mandy Kimmins also from the Sports Club commented "I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us so far as funders and volunteers. The project, once finished, will be amazing! A personal thank you to Neil Cotton and Ian Doble for their belief, support and hard work in bringing the project to fruition!"

For more information on the St Agnes Sports Club Changing Room Project or to sponsor, support, or volunteer during it please contact Neil Cotton via email Neil@chapelporth.com or Mandy Kimmins on 07974 370666.