SINCE early 2014 the Shrewsbury & Newport Canals Trust have been trying to raise match funding of £500,000 to restore the warehouses and basin at Wappenshall Wharf, John Myers writes.
The total cost of the project is £1.5 million and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), which has extended our final Round 2 submission date to 12/12/16, will contribute £1 million towards this as long as we can raise the balance the of £500,000.
Community Centre
In early March we launched a local appeal to the communities and villages around Wappenshall. The project is particularly relevant to them as the restoration plans include the creation of a local community centre, there being nothing like that in the immediate area. Since then our volunteers have walked an awful lot of miles delivering many thousands of appeal leaflets direct to people's doors—and it is starting to pay off as we are receiving new pledges from the local community regularly
As a means of inspiring our volunteers and the local people we have erected a panel at the entrance to Wappenshall Wharf to display the target we need to raise and the amount that we have achieved so far. At the end of our last monthly Wappenshall work party the latest total was revealed and we are now up to £173,000, so £200,000 is in sight.
Through to second round
We are through to the second round of our application for £100,000 of European funding and are extremely hopeful that we will be successful with this—if we manage to get it then we are confident that we can still succeed in time.
Our fundraising team are making more applications for grants to newly identified grant giving charities and we are working hard to interest philanthropic individuals to take an interest