Blackpool FC Community Trust column: New development helps us take the next step forward

One of the Community Trust’s biggest challenges is facilities and having to utilise other organisations and companies’ spaces.

This has been heightened even more in the past year, when we have attempted to reopen programmes but facilities have remained closed due to the difficulties of the pandemic.

We were successful in turning the old ticket office and club shop into an Education and Community Centre (ECC) in 2019, which was heavily supported by funding from the Football Foundation.

As part of the next stage of our developments, we are very excited to announce a lease agreement with Blackpool FC to take over the space in the North Stand, which was previously host to the Safehands Nursery.

Our plan is to start work and transform this into a facility that will host our BFC Sports College and wider programmes for the future.

We have instructed a local firm and partner of Blackpool FC, FTS Merit, to lead on remodelling this space into purpose-built classrooms and community rooms to host a range of our provisions.

My board of trustees have been very supportive in allowing me to utilise some of our reserve funds for this development.

Our hope is to use the lockdown period to get this facility as close to ready as possible for when the country and our town can reopen.

It also allows us to support the club with paying for the additional rental space and utilising it in a way that supports our community.

This will be phase two of our developments for the area, which we expect to include two further phases utilising land close to the stadium and we hope will see us eventually open an alternative education school and a sports hub for the area too.

I’ll share greater detail on the next two phases at an appropriate time.

We are also looking to open a northern hub and have made a tender application for a facility in the Bispham area.

These five spaces would then give the Community Trust a fantastic suite of facilities to serve our communities, while also utilising a host of other buildings and outdoor areas in the town.

Our intention remains to support the whole of our town, and to do this, we must make our offer accessible to all.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have also set up the ECC as a Covid mass testing site for staff.

All staff who are still working in schools, supporting youth work with vulnerable groups and one-to-one provision, are being tested on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Of the 30 staff who have been attending, all tests have come back negative so far, showing the lengths we go to, to keep our staff and participants as safe as possible.

This also means that once our schools reopen, we can also reopen our Sports College, traineeship programmes and offices, and keep all staff safe in this environment.

Thanks for reading. If you value what we do and are able to support us, a digital subscription is just £1 per month for the first two months. Try us today by clicking here