During summer of 2020 the committee was exploring a number of options for indoor shooting at the field and considering how we might raise the necessary funds for such a project.
In October 2020 Sport England announced a fund of £16.5m to support sports clubs in returning to sport during COVID19 and the Club applied for a grant of £50,000. Just a few weeks later in early December came the news that we had been awarded the full amount. The race was then on.
The application for planing permission was submitted to Kirklees on Tuesday 22nd December. Early indications were that that our application was not being looked upon very favourably and the committee agreed to commision the services of a specialist planning consultant (who by coincidence is an ex-archer) who prepared further submissions to the Planning Office in support of our application.
Finally, after a number of delays and some concessions on, planning consent was finally issued on Wednesay 28th April. With quotes expiring and steel prices due to increase we had to move quickly to confirm orders and pay initial deposits before the end of the month.
The tree removal work was completed on Thursday 29th April – very short notice, but it was that or wait 6 weeks for the next available slot.
Thanks to the solo efforts of Bob Chatterton, the area between the paviliion and the road has now been cleared of all the brambles and undergrowth ready to be levelled and used for additional parking.
Excavation and construction of the slab commenced on 1st june and is now expected to complete on Tuesday 8th June (no weekend working). Thus, the field is out of action between 7am and 6pm on week days with shooting as normal after 6pm and all weekend. Progress is shown below
And the saga continues….
After various delays we were expcting delivery of all components on Monday 18th October and had the construction team lined up to commence work. There should have been two deliveries on the 18th but unfortunately one of the deliveries was delayed and would arrrive until later in the week. As a result the construction team had little to do on day one, so left site with a promise to return on Thursday.
Luckily the steel arrived bright and early on Thursday 21st October and with a Hurculean effort the construction team managed to complete the assemble of all the steel work in one day.
After a number of changes of plan the wall and roof panels were delivered on Wednesday 27th October. Working at an amazing rate, the walls were completed in just one day.
Next was the roof, again completed within one day. Finally……………. the construction work is complete,
By the end of November all of the electrical work has been completed, some benches constructed and temporary netting installed. With the old indoor foam targets in place temporarily everything is ready to go….. pending building control signoff and other paperwork.
In early December preparation of the target wall commenced. The pile of foam that had been delivered in July was moved into the range and three work parties organised to cut this all into strips. The Wednesday night longbow “team” brought along tools to construct the target frames (although in reality we all stood round watching whilst Richard Nuttall did all the hard work exercising his carpentry skills).
Once the frames and foam were brought together, we finally had an operational Indoor Archery Range just in time for Christmas with the official opening ceremony held on the Sunday 5th June 2022 in conjunction with the Jubilee weekend celebrations.
This project has been made possible by a grants from Sports England, Localgiving and Postcode Neighbourhood Trust, a grant-giving charity funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
