St George’s Crypt has been successful in a bid to the Government’s Department of Communities and Local Government in securing substantial funding towards further development.
The grant, under the Places of Change Programme, is in total £988,569.The bid is for provision of new facilities for skills training and arts programmes for the service users, a new café-style area, with a residents lounge, and also 15 individual bedrooms which will allow rough sleepers to have privacy and will end the dormitory style facilities which have been provided over many years. The grant will also allow a much greater area of the Crypt to be open to service users – from the present 45% to 80% (including access to the chapel) and will also provide for a newly landscaped garden which will only be accessible from inside the Crypt.
Additional funding will still be required to complete the project and this is estimated at £350,000. It was a requirement of the bidding process that an element of match funding be sought.
Our design team has been hard at work in developing the project and it is projected that we go on site in October/November this year. It will involve a nine month contract during which time the Crypt will relocate.
The successful bid was one of only five to be granted funds in the Yorkshire and Humber region, and was one of a select few nationally to be awarded 100% of what was requested. The Department of Communities and Local Government suggested that representatives from Leatherhead in Surrey (who are considering a similar project) visit the Crypt – following this visit last week, they said we had changed their perspectives!
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