Bury Rangers Clubhouse Design

For sixty years this club has run out of car boots, kitbags and the backs of cars. Committee meetings in a hired space. Parents standing on a touchline with nowhere to go and nothing hot to drink, most of the time! We're planning to change that. This is the proposed Bury Rangers clubhouse at Richard Hale School. Where it will go The clubhouse would sit beside the 3G pitches at Richard Hale, on the grass mound. That location wasn't chosen because it's the prettiest spot on the site. It was chosen because it's the one that works — and because it's one that will eventually pay for itself. Feasibility. It's a buildable plot next to existing pitches, with access, services and the pitch infrastructure already in place. Building where the football already happens is far simpler and far cheaper than building anywhere else. Footfall. The 3G pitches are the busiest part of our week. A clubhouse next to them is a clubhouse people actually walk past, walk into, and spend money in. Put it somewhere quieter and it becomes a nice building that nobody uses — and a nice building that nobody uses doesn't generate the income the club needs. Thousands pass by over the year and its a perfect spot for us to create our first permanent location. What's inside We're keeping it deliberately modest. The building would have: A small kitchen, for hot drinks, food on matchdays and tournament days A toilet Seating areas, flexible enough to be a warm room for parents on a January morning, a team meeting space, or a place for the committee to actually meet Why it earns its keep The clubhouse is designed to work as a classroom as well as a clubhouse. That means it can be let out during school holidays and at times when we aren't using it. Rental income from a building we already own is one of the very few ways a grassroots club can bring in money that doesn't come from asking parents and sponsors for more. What comes later We also want to refurbish the existing changing rooms which are in a bad state. They need it, we know they need it, and we intend to do it. But it comes after the clubhouse, not alongside it. A dedicated girls' changing room. We are a club for everyone, and "everyone belongs" has to mean something more than a line on a website. Our girls' section deserves proper facilities and we are committed to providing them. Again — this is a later phase, not this one and will most lilkely come with a renovation of the boys changing rooms. Where we are with planning Planning permission has already been approved for a building on this site and agreement is in place with Richard Hale. However, the design has moved on since that approval, and the building now proposed is not the one that was originally consented. That means we may well need to go back through the planning process again with the new scheme. We're working through that now. It may add time. It's the right thing to do, and we'd rather do it properly than cut a corner on a building meant to last decades. What happens next We'll keep you updated here as the plan becomes clearer but we'd like for the clubhouse to be built within the next 18 months.