Article - Fishersgate

Where we are

The project to build a new Community Centre, the Dome Project, started over 10 years ago.

Hundreds of individuals and many organizations, locally and nationally put enormous effort, good will and funding - more than £1.2 million - into developing a real Centre for the Community for the 21st Century, which the community could truly call its own. The challenge that these new proposals intend to meet is to protect and realise this enormous investment - more than £1.2 million - and keep faith with all those in the community, our friends and supporters who have fought so hard for Fishersgate.

In 2006, though many services and activities were running successfully, criminal arson and a bitter legal battle with the builder, brought a halt to development and closed our facility. The Fishersgate Community Association then entrusted their Big Lottery grant for a Healthy Living Centre based in St Peter’s Church to Adur District Council to take up and carry forward.
In 2008, the Court found comprehensively in favour of the Fishersgate Community Association, awarding it both damages and costs. The builder, though, is very unlikely to be able to pay so the Association cannot rely on that money.
In line with the resources that are available, the Dome Project has been reconfigured. The Geodesic Dome itself can never economically be finished – construction and design shortcomings would make that prohibitively expensive. However, the rest of the development can be restarted and completed with the funds available from the fire insurance.
The two long wings will eventually be linked by a new, simple, building, the changing rooms completed, the sports rink re-born, the clubhouse wing once more available as a Community Centre. Alongside the Healthy Living/Children and Family Centre development of St Peter’s Church, and the drop-in-centre in our beautiful Laundrette, the Dome Project will be at the centre of a campus style range of services and facilities.

All articles

Ground Hog Day
Well, for a while, the Council Officers were genuinely interested in coming to an understanding with our community rather than trying to socially engineer the area. The FCA team had a very positive first meeting with the Chief Executive Ian Lowrie; Chief Legal Officer Jeremy Cook; Peter Latham whose close and long involvement with all aspects of the Dome is well known; Nathalie Brahma-Pearl serene in her superiority, plus two councillors sent as observers, We all agreed to hold a series of meetings, split into two strands. The first to explore how we could work together develop the Dome site for the good of the community, the second to put on the table all the issues that had poisoned relations between the Community Association and the Local Authority over the years, and to try to learn the lessons so that future projects could be managed better..

The CRUNCH
This evening March 31 at the Shoreham Civic Centre, the Cabinet will consider the Association’s proposal to repair and complete the Fishersgate Community Centre. Jim Plant, the Association’s surveyor who has produced the plans and development costings, Peter Averillo, the Association’s chair and Ricky Daniel, from the Project Development Committee, will present the Proposal and answer Members’ questions.

This time, it’s for REAL -
The Fishersgate Community Association puts forward exciting new proposals

Where we are -
The project to build a new Community Centre

Together we can make Fishersgate a better place
I am a Trustee of the Fishersgate Community Association. I have been for just over a year. I joined the F.C.A. in the hope that I would be able to help with kick-starting again the good the F.C.A. had previously provided for the community.