Drill Hall latest: and Sidmouth fishermen gathering herring on Sidmouth beach during WW1

The Drill Hall plays quite an important role on the seafront:
Futures Forum: Plans for Port Royal: anticipating a Regeneration Board >>> of covenants and land-swapping at Port Royal

Here is their latest newsletter:

Hello 

You are receiving this email because you signed up as a Friend of Sidmouth Drill Hall or because we thought that you might be interested in updates, developments, and activities related to the building and the work of Sidmouth Drill Hall Hub CIC. As a newsletter has not been sent out for some time, we thought you might like to see the following heart warming film of Sidmouth fishermen gathering herring on Sidmouth beach during WW1. Wearing the jerseys that we researched last year and can be purchased
with the knitting patterns through the website.

Look closely and you can see Pennington Point and the Drill Hall in the background… 

Old fishermen work short-handed at Sidmouth, England, during World War I HD Stock Footage - YouTube

Sidmouth Drill Hall Hub CIC was initially founded from the campaign to save the Drill Hall, but over the past year or so it has mainly been focussing on education and community work, predominantly through a workshop project funded by Devon County Council that has provided information on inshore fishing through art (Gyotaku printing), fish filleting, preparation and cooking to young people in Devon coastal schools. The project has further developed some of the key objectives of the CIC to educate people on locally caught fish and the history, heritage, and importance of sustainable fishing communities. It follows the recent EU funded ‘TourFish’ (‘Tourism for Inshore Fish, Food and Sustainability’) project that connected Sidmouth to the coastal towns of Middelburg in Holland, Guilvinec in Brittany, Boulogne-Sur-Mer, Roeselare in Flanders, and Hastings. The TourFish project was led by the University of Greenwich. Sidmouth Drill Hall Hub CIC was a main partner, and representatives from all partner organisations visited Sidmouth during a wet and windy Sidmouth Sea Fest in May 2015. 

The TourFish partners examined a range of aspects of Responsible Tourism and Sustainable Development linked to inshore fishing and coastal regeneration. You can read about all of this including the final TourFish report, the schools workshops and other projects, at http://www.sidmouthdrillhall.com Port Royal Scoping Study You will be aware that there is now a considerable amount of activity around Port Royal predominantly with the recently launched Port Royal scoping study.

The Drill Hall building sits within the footprint of Port Royal. Ultimately its future will be assessed within future plans which may include new proposals for its demolition as were presented in 2012
https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=MBXVKEGH09100
or a move to create a coastal centre from the building that could host a wide range of activities and be a point of growth for the area from within that is managed by and for the community. We would very much welcome and appreciate your feedback specifically on the Drill Hall building and whether you still see it as part of any future development of Port Royal. We will pass all of
our work to date and any feedback from Friends to the town council and Scoping Study project consultant.

Sidmouth Drill Hall Hub CIC, however, is unlikely now to continue to run an active campaign to restore and reopen it.

We hope to update on that more soon.

The Drill Hall was recently chosen as one of four coastal buildings from many around the UK for the 'Marine Dream Hubs' project to restore and place buildings on the UK coasts into community ownership by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) as part of Blue New Deal http://www.bluenewdeal.org The project included a lottery bid for the project. Plans remain ongoing with NEF so there may yet be some developments there. 

You may be aware of Mary Walden-Till who has been running her own active campaign of late to save the Drill Hall. 

Mary has created a website which she keeps updated with the history of the building, the heritage of the area, the legal situation including deeds and covenants of the area, and more. You can visit Mary’s website at http://drillhall.historic-sidmouth.uk We will continue to send occasional newsletters from here but newsletters relating to the Drill Hall building will be coming from Mary who is passionate about seeing the building brought back to use for all the community as is was in the past. If you would like to opt out of any of the newsletters please let us know at info@sidmouthdrillhall.com
or drillhall@m-t.me.uk 

Finally, we would like to offer a word of support here for the Sid Valley Neighbourhood Plan and request that if you have not done so already then you please get involved. The Neighbourhood Plan steering group will also be welcoming thoughts and feedback on the future of Port Royal. You can find out more about the Neighbourhood Plan at: http://www.sidmouth.gov.uk/index.php/neighbourhood-plan

The circulation to Friends of our position on everything and the activity of Sidmouth Drill Hall Hub CIC is now long overdue and we do hope to be able to send more out either way on the future of the CIC soon.

Thank you for listening.

Sidmouth Drill Hall Hub CIC | Promoting positive regeneration
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