The movement to achieve a Community Arts Centre in the Edwardian St Annes College building has received a major setback.

Unless the developers allow more time or a benefactor comes forward, it will not happen. 

The key aim of the group has always been to keep this heritage building in community use

The Saart group have raised thousands of pounds and devoted many hours to enable a bid to be submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund. 

Whilst the HLF have indicated that the project fits their criteria, the complexity of the application means that more time is needed to develop the proposals.

We cannot expect a decision before the 30th June deadline imposed by Newfield Jones. We have therefore decided there is no alternative but to withdraw our application.

We are bitterly disappointed that Newfield Jones is not willing to continue to support the community arts project and give something back to the area which has afforded them so much business opportunity.

The need for this facility will not go away. We have huge local support but have lacked backing from many elected members of the Council and from the Tourism and Leisure Department of Fylde Borough Council. Their support could have made the difference between success and failure. 

We are grateful to Lancashire Enterprises for supporting us in this bid, to the Lifelong Learning Department of Lancashire County Council (who could see the great benefits of joining the centre with the library) and to all our fundraisers. 

The support of Michael Jack MP has been important to us and we thank him.

Lytham Hall was saved for the community at the 11th hour by the generous funding from BAE Systems. Perhaps a similar miracle can happen again.

The Saart group will remain together.

Betty Higham worked hard on a great fund raising idea using her experience as an antiques collector to organise an Antiques fair on Saturday 25th May at The Drive Methodist Church Lots of people cleared out their attics and £320 was raised for SAART. SAART says a big "Thank You" to Betty and her helpers.

John Ramsbottom wants 50 women with healthy appetites. Do you think you are one of those women?

If so he wants to take you for a Three Course Italian Meal in St. Annes to discuss your views on arts development ideas in St. Annes.

The date will be a mid week date in May. This will be a subsidised meal to gather like-minded ladies willing to share ideas to benefit the town.

Interested ?  contact John for your ticket Remember, Ladies only.

ANSWER: they were all ex students of The Blackpool & The Fylde College taught in St. Annes by Brian Hindle. 

Recently here has been loads of interest in past students of performing arts from the former Blackpool & The Fylde College site in our St. Annes.The LSA Express begins a competition for the best anecdote of student days or where people are now. 

First prize is a £15 book voucher provided by The book shelf in Orchard Road.

If you have stories please phone me or email them

The evening was good fun and a wonderful selection of prizes had been gathered due to the generosity of local businesses. Thank you to all who contributed and who came along on the night. 

A special thanks to Tracy Dawson and Little Mo of the Roly Polys who presented the prizes, and to the Wyevale for hosting the event.

More events are planned, including an antiques fair. Please contact us if you can help. Partnership funding for the lottery bid is essential. 

1. Funding the Heritage Lottery (HLF) bid
Our successful (and packed out) fund raising evening at the Dalmeny, which showed "The town from the Sand" 1974 film, raised over £700. 

A supporters meeting was held and many offers of help came forward. Flyers were distributed around the town and about £1,000 in donations came in within days. This was topped by a donation of £1,000 from Chris Webb of the Dalmeny hotel. 

Donations have continued to come in as people realise campaigns such as this cost money. 

A claim by the Leader of the Council, Councillor Hayhurst from Elswick that we had been given £5,000 to help our costs was made in the Chamber. This is untrue.

Lytham St Annes Civic Society has funded architects plans and other administration costs.

2 Submitting the bid
Our consultant Stephanie Sirr has done extra research and co-ordinated the bid. She has recently left the Grand Theatre
Blackpool, having masterminded their successful HLF bid for restoration, and now manages the Nottingham Playhouse. 

It took us 3 days to get all the paperwork together in files - 5 copies - when the bid was sent off in December.

3. When will we hear?
These decisions can take a long time. We hope that we have a positive decision before Newfield Jones bring in the hard hats on 1st July!

4. Fylde Borough Council's Arts Strategy
Our earlier bid for funding from North West Arts was totally hampered by the lack of an Arts Strategy. This is now is place and in it you will find all the arguments we have been putting forward over the last two years. 
The social and economic regenerative importance of culture and community are at last beginning to be recognised.

An Arts Officer is to be appointed.

Fylde borough sadly pulls in many directions. We argue for St Annes as the major population grouping and tourist centre. Neither St Annes nor Lytham have parish or town councils to speak for them - unlike the rural hinterland. A vibrant St Annes will help the whole borough.

Many more councillors are coming to see that if this Community Arts Centre does not happen then the opportunity will be lost for perhaps a generation. There is no other obvious location for such a facility in the town. 

5. Viability
We are in discussions with potential commercial users of the Centre - one of our main arguments is that we want the centre to be viable and not a drain on public resources. More news soon on this.

We all know there are some who have never believed that a Community Arts Centre was even a possibility for St Annes, and since the erection of a sales portakabin right in front of the college those numbers have, understandably, increased. However, be reassured that in terms of what SAART has being trying to do, the portakabin (delightful piece of architecture that it is) is an irrelevancy.

The main movers of the campaign have been busier that ever and will never give up their quest to make St Annes a better place to live.

As you know, property developers Newfield Jones have planning consent to alter the college building to create 20 flats - this is in spite of a Fylde Borough Council planning brief which spoke strongly for continued community use. 
The company have given us time to organise and submit a Heritage Lottery application. They moved onto the site in the Autumn 2001 and demolished the rear section of the campus, leaving the front Edwardian listed part which will be retained. 

Remember that this too would have gone by now if we had not asked English Heritage to list it as a building of architectural and historical importance! 
Their plans are to build a large block of flats behind the library and underground car parking behind the college. At present they are working on the basement part of the car park. They are using the old college as a site office and do not intend to begin altering it until later this year. 

We therefore have been given a final extension to the end of June 2002. For this we are grateful to the developers - and we are sure that underneath their commercial "sense" they too would like to see the hundreds of new inhabitants of St Annes have an Community Arts Centre to be proud of.

The original developers of St Annes were to be found dominating the council of the day and realised that in order to attract people to their new town, there had to be facilities for them. These days, re-locating companies still look for cultural, social and economic infrastructure; acres of housing will attract no one.

With more people living in St Annes town centre than ever before this centre is essential.

"Imagine my surprise when I found that I had become a pin up in a town called New York Falls. Finding myself fair, fat and forty, I certainly didn't see me as a pin-up. 

Marie Blue the secretary to the Mayor informed me that they had visited our web-site and printed out my picture and started a 'Keep John Ramsbottom warm campaign!' I didn't believe a word of it and presumed it was a clever hoax by John Bentham - and he thought that I had created it.

 Imagine my surprise when I received another e-mail from America showing interest in our campaign to save the building and create a community arts centre.They raised $240 in their first day.

Further internet research showed that there was a 6,000 population in a national park called The Arindarock Mountains, north west of New York and twenty miles from the border of Canada. This is a busy tourist area for rich New Yorkers.They had saved a building from destruction by fund raising and now operate an arts centre and therefore appreciate our challenge and support our campaign.They told me a great anecdote of being $6,000 short and an hour away from the deadline when a tall tanned quiet man came in and wrote them out a cheque and only when he had gone did they read his signature as Clint Eastwood. Bet they 'Felt lucky' that day?

Since then I have received various chatty e-mails and now all thirteen photos are on A3 size posters decorating both their local store and the Mayor's office. I have offers of marriage, (don't think they looked close enough at my photo) and invites to be an honorary member of their arts council mmmmm sounds inviting......I'll just go and search out my passport."

The meeting was held by campaign group SAART to seek practical support for the project following Fylde Council's decision by a majority of one vote at the beginning of October to overturn the award of a £5,000 grant to help the lottery bid. "Since then we have received many donations and tremendous encouragement for continuation of the project from people and organisations in St Annes and surrounding areas" said Spokeswoman Marion Coupe. Group Chairman John Bentham reported that developer Newfield Jones was working on the back part of the building first, and that in any case it would be 12 months before attention was turned to the older front part.

Among the planned facilities are community rooms, workshop space, a stylish bar and cafe, comedy museum, art gallery and studio theatre. In addition, the building will provide vital expansion space for the adjacent public library, which is also a listed building and would be threatened with uncertainty if plans for flats go ahead. 

Although work has started on the demolition of part of the former college site in preparation for the development of luxury flats on the site, this does not affect the listed Edwardian block, which would house the community arts centre. SAART believes that the groundswell of opinion in favour of the project will ensure that funding is in place in time to purchase and restore the building to public use. 

£1,000 in donations came in within days. This was topped by a donation of £1,000 from Chris Webb of the Dalmeny hotel. 

The St Annes Community Arts Centre Trust is a group of volunteers who believe the college building should be kept for the community.

This will take time and money but is achievable if the people of Fylde - and in particular St Annes - want it.

The support of the Council is crucial. There are many councillors who wish to support the project but who find it hard to see a way forward, there are those whose support has been tremendous from the beginning; unfortunately (perhaps for them!) there are a few who take issue with the whole project.

We are now continuing to look for a way forward. The group has recently made a presentation to Ken Lee, Fylde's new chief executive, and other officers, and is meeting soon with the consultant composing Fylde's Arts Strategy.

We would hope to be able to submit an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund soon as we have already had encouraging talks with them.

The Councils Listening Day is 22 August, we hope they listen to the voices of the last two years about the Community Arts Centre!