Following Permission to Start (PTS) by the Heritage Fund on 23rd February, the Professional Team were mobilised and started a 16-week period to prepare the detailed designs necessary for inclusion in the Invitation To Tender documentation (ITT) for the Main Building Contractor.
The team was enhanced with an Interior designer, lighting designer and landscape designer and delivered the outputs to time.
During this period the User Group were also engaged and met 3 times to consider options and input their views on the shape and appearance of the pizza area, the layout of the ground floor including size and placement of tables, and colour palette used in the interior design. All of the options recommended by the User group were accepted and are fed into the detailed designs.
The next step is for the Quantity Surveyor to prepare a detailed cost report to show what the projected costs are expected to be against the detailed designs. This will be followed by a full review of costs and funding to ensure we can get the two to balance.
The PTS also initiated the start on our Activities Plan which at this time has three parts.
- With the primary school children are engaged
- in an Art Project in which they are designing posters depicting historical buildings in Wickham Market, including ‘The George’, which will be printed and posted on the hoardings.
- in establishing an oral history linked to ‘The George’. They are interviewing long-standing residents of the village and exploring and recording the history of the village through their testimony.
- Researching and printing a book with working title ‘The George at Wickham’, telling the story of the pub from early Tudor times to the present day, which will be published as ‘The George’ re-opens in December, 2023.
At the time of issue of the PTS, while the strategy to complete the overall funding for the project was in place, its implementation over several strands is progressive over many months. Consequently, the PTS has a ‘hold point’ prior to issue of the ITT to confirm all the Delivery Phase funding is in place at that milestone.