East Looe Town Trust Old Lifeboat Station & Watchtower Reopening

Crowds gathered for the reopening and regeneration of the Old Lifeboat Station and Watchtower in Looe, Cornwall

Transcript

00:00Well, Brian, a very successful day for you and a special day, your labour of love has finally come to fruition.

00:06Yes, it has. Well, it's not just my day, but I was just glad to have a good team working through the process.

00:12It's been a long one, but once we managed to secure the money from the Good Growth Fund,

00:19that was the right start and we could actually do the work we needed to get the building properly sorted out.

00:26Tell me a bit about the project and how it started.

00:30Well, it started really with the watchtower being in such a poor condition that it really did need taken in hand.

00:39It couldn't be used for any sort of purposes at all, apart from that it was used as a building store,

00:47this watchtower part here, because it's too damp, etc. and so forth.

00:51And similarly, the gallery here was also not really fit for use as a commercial premises.

01:02And that whole thing was deteriorating and needed putting in hand.

01:07But we had a survey done and basically they recommended a full restoration and bringing the building up to date.

01:15The thing is, it was only ever built originally as an industrial building.

01:20It was built to house a lifeboat and provide a shelter for the crew.

01:26But of course, nowadays, if we were to use it, the building properly, it's going to be brought up to scratch.

01:31We have done now and it's now a superb watchtower, which we're going to use as an office for the Eastview Town Trust.

01:38It's got photovoltaic electricity, sustainable electricity, and we've got an exciting new venture operating in the boathouse,

01:53which is Penrock Distillery, and they will be producing rum and selling it in a rum bar.

02:00And people can actually see what's going on.

02:02So we'll be wishing them every success and see how that goes.

02:05And how much have you had to generate funds yourself and money that you've brought in from various sources?

02:10Yes, well, the major funder, of course, was the Good Growth Fund, which was £289,000.

02:20We, as a trust, were putting in well over £100,000.

02:26But there obviously has been increased costs, inflation, unknown pieces of work that needed doing on the way,

02:36and the trustees had to pay that as well.

02:38So it's quite a considerable sum of money.

02:40But at the end of the day, this part of Loo, the Church End area, has got a really superb building as a landmark space

02:51that I think is going to be a credit to the town and hopefully boost the prosperity of this part of Loo.

03:00Hopefully also support the seafront, which is a lovely seafront.

03:04But the old building was really letting it down.

03:09This doesn't. It's going to be good.

03:11And for the future, there's lots of optimism, I guess.

03:14There certainly is.

03:15The building is sound and it's multi-use, so it's very, very flexible how we use it.

03:22And we can have confidence in the future that a building that was first put up in 1866,

03:29it's now good, we hope, for another 150 years.

03:34And this is my home.

03:36Oh, this is my home.

03:42And this is my home.