That's great, thank you! We have pretty much everything in place and ready to go..... The biggest problem was finding somewhere that would allow us to build a track and use the land as a permanent place to keep the track. It's taken the best part of a year to track down land owners, search the land registry for derilict/waste land that would be in a suitable place and a willing landlord. We have been working on getting all the equipment, track markers, timing system, astro turf...etc,etc... for some time, so we have had plenty of time to get things for free or for next to nothing. It's certainly not something we are just jumping in to on a whim.
The council, although very supportive of the club, were not so supportive of giving us any space to hold club events. Fortunately and at a point when we thought it was almost a lost cause, one of the local land owners got in contact and has offered us a permanent place for the club and track.
We have been given 12 months free rent and 2 years of guaranteed placement with the option to extend the contract if the club is doing well enough to support it after the three years is at an end.
The land is with out a doubt, waste land. It is covered in brambles and about 4 years worth of weeds and small trees have taken hold of it.
there is a massive (I'm not kidding...over 2000 tons) pile of topsoil, removed from a field next to our plot, that sits right in the middle...... the catch is....we have to level it.
We have the pile being moved by a local company that are coming to collect it after the weeds and trees have been cut down. They want it to fill a quarry so we were happy for them to take all they can. Plus it has saved us thousands in waste removal costs.
We have a few of us going to the site on Saturday (tomorrow) to clear the weeds and burn the brambles......... long day ahead :/
Once we have a level surface (or fairly close to level) we can start thinking about the next stage of the build and moving things to a point of holding our first race!
We know it's a lot of work, but the whole team is putting a lot of effort in to make the most of the opportunity that we have got.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&...00327&t=h&z=19
That link should take you directly to our plot. It's the green bit, in between the two factory's. We have use of the car park that is joining the site on the right (as you look from the top) on the weekends and evenings.
We do have the option to pull out, if it looks like it won't take off. I am hoping that it won't come to that. I have yet to speak to any of the other local (ish) clubs, but it would be good to hear from them or to speak at some point in the near future.
Any help, advice or general thoughts would be great!
I'm confident that we have a strong racing community in the South West, We just want to give them somewhere to call home