Below is the latest drawing of the current proposal for the ‘Boat Barn’ project.

Investigation of the feasibility of our original plan – to build a separate building close to the Burton Bridge – threw up a major problem. The trees alongside the bridge are protected by a tree preservation order. The Club has no wishes to remove the trees, but we discovered that protection of the tree roots below the ground meant that we would not be able to build closer than about 9.5 metres from the tree trunk. This would position the building too close to the existing boathouse, with insufficient space between the buildings to allow car parking and to allow boats to be taken in and out of the building.

And so there was a major re-think of the project. It has been suggested that by using special ground protection materials we should be able to relocate the car park to the piece of land next to the bridge, around and beneath the trees, without the weight of the cars damaging the tree roots. This gave us two options – to build the Boat Barn on the existing car park with the main doors facing the existing building, or to attach the new building to the existing building with the doors facing the bridge.

As can be seen by the drawing, it has been decided to further investigate the latter of these two proposals. It is felt that this will be less ‘bitty’ than building the Boat Barn as a separate building, enabling the Club to develop one main complex building and leaving the remainder of the property less cluttered.

Careful planning will be required to allow construction of the new building whilst still operating from the old boathouse, but it is believed that good project management and staged construction will allow this to be achieved.

These new plans are currently being discussed with the local authority planning department with a view to preparing an application for planning permission.