Southmead Development Trust - Using the Community Resilience Fund to improve our building

Hi, um, good afternoon, thank you for sparing me some time. Uh, could you just state your name and the community interest company that you are in charge of? Great, I am Sam Garbage. I am Operations Manager for Southmead Development Trust, and we are a charity and registered company. Excellent

Uh, so you applied for the Community Resilience Fund, you were successful in. Uh, being allocated a portion of funding, um, just curious, what did you, what have you spent the money on? Uh, a whole load of very important things and I can actually show you some of them now, uh, if you walk around to me. Most of our resilience factors were around er our accessibility, people being safe and being able to get in and out of the building safely, feeling safe and respected, and then also our energy efficiency program

So, we look out this window, we'll see more windows. So previously this was all uh single glazed crittled steel windows relating back to the very beginning of the building's life in the 1950s when it was a school. OK

And the steel frames were here up until a year ago when the. Started phased replacement and the Community Resilience fund managed to er like do the lion's share of these windows, so some of it we already had in place, some of it we've got funding since to complete, the Community Resilience Fund basically completed, gave us the firepower to launch that project and complete it, so the, South facing windows where all the high traffic areas, all the community meeting rooms, all the er community business tenants on the ground floor, all have their offices there, so it's a really high traffic area for them, it was all drafty um er noisy, noisy. Uh, ill-fitting windows, not even safe, some panes would even fall out, dare I confess, uh, that we would have to secure, um, taking a lot of time and, and money to maintain, but now we've got these wonderfully, beautifully secure, uh, energy efficient, um, but also ventilating windows, um, yeah, for the next 25, 30 years and beyond

Excellent. So that is one of the biggest contributions we've got, um. We'd have to walk a long way to see another one, but let's do it

Sure, um, so I can talk about things that are just about to happen, we've, um, oh. You might want to take a look at that. We also spent some of the money, a small proportion of the money, only 500 pounds, but it was critical in, uh, a new bitumen coating on the that we our own maintenance staff applied to the over to the cafe roof

OK. Obviously trying to make some of these leak issues historic. Yeah, they're like absolutely terrible, so, um

So you're in the process of having that done. So, it's a short, it's kind of a short to medium term fix. We're gonna get about 1 to 5 years out of that fix, but it gives us time to fundraise for a better option and stop the water pooling in

So that's like a paint that you can apply to the roof. We've got our own main team to do it. The Community Resilience fund allows us to buy a big stock, and we've got a reserve stock because we have to reapply occasionally and actions up

OK, we've got that. So thank you very much for for that, um. It's not addressed before we do it on the wall, um

Just just go on the final stage of this project to fund um. complete rethink and reprioritization of this area, very car centric, and um, you know, pedestrians and particularly those with mobility scooters and buggies, for example, arriving stage right. Uh, don't feel safe, they have to share the road with traffic currently, so what we're gonna do is build a new segregated path along the middle

Wessel have been absolutely fantastic in supporting us to, uh, come up with a really accessible design. We're gonna double the number of accessible bays immediately available outside the center, so that'll be that, this whole new strip here, and also then just provide a load of coordination paths between places, so the Community Resilience Fund has given us. Access to the expertise in Wessel allowed us to fund architects to do a proper master plan to not just do it on the hoof, uh, you know, rezone a bit and hope for the best, a proper, you know, pedestrian flows, uh, plan, uh, and then obviously just giving us the capital funds to sort it out

So we placed the order last week and they're coming in a couple of weeks. So we're gonna go for a big long walk, uh, now, see, uh, the final bits we've done, so. 1950s build school, uh unfortunately

The physical access uh for people. Uh You know, disabled people was just not part of their planning, so they put things like this in, which is obviously a massive obstacle for people trying to access toilets whilst in meeting rooms. So, um, we found loads of complaints and feedback that people just found for this very long corridor, a really uncomfortable run, um

We need the loo, slightly undignifying and and and really unhelpful, so I got some really good accessible facilities we just didn't have enough of them in the right places, so we built, All the way down there, a nice new er accessible toilet, um, again, we've got access to resilient fund for architects fees, so we could build it to the right stack environmental er British Council Environmental Standards, which is very, very important, er, so it is a er accessible loop for people serving all these rooms and also the people that are currently based here in their offices so. Disabled people want to come and work for the various organizations, organizations based here, they can now do with, um, much, much greater access to facilities and much more reliable facilities for them, and we've arrived, so you're getting a full tour, uh, so we're gonna try the lovely here you go. Ta da, we're gonna try and spruce it up with a bit of color, oh nice and a color contrasting, which was a Wessel recommendation, so it's very obvious, you know where the handrails and things are, yeah, but right now fully functional, brilliant, yeah, very bright

We actually got funded a new um, In addition to our um fire evacuation er. Toolkit if you will, um, that this is actually now also then a proper refuge point in an emergency. So someone who um is unable to evacuate on their own in a in an emergency can call for assistance

This goes back to our reception so it kind of boosts our ability to fulfill that statutory duty to people in a fire. OK, um, so that was all thrown in in the same budget. It's not something we planned to do, but the contractors said they could do it for the same price, which was absolutely amazing

That's correct. I wasn't part of the whole plan, but it's something we desperately needed, so thank you again. So I think

The glaring omission. No, I think that's, that's it, it's quite a list. Yeah, um, so yeah, that's really interesting about the history of this place

It was a school back in the school back in the day, so this is the old, yeah, I was, I was seeing that, and some of them, you know, they've been sealed up with paint, they can't even open anymore just to deal with the drafts, yeah, um, you know. Oh, I see. So that's actually if you can see the other stairwell, I'll show, maybe show you this one, but the other stairwell's got broken glass and

You know, which is what the, the south side also looked like, um. Yeah, so you're knackered all windows, that's the next phase that we look at the paint pee and off. It's it's a nice big bright window, let's a lot of light in, but yeah, it's very dated, isn't it? Give you an example, so yeah, now I've got this lovely

But it's a different temperature. I know it's so hot, but yeah, so, so our, you know, we've got a really ambitious net zero plan, we want to be net zero by 2030. 0 fantastic, particularly on our heating and um, Uh, heating and cooling needs, you know, hotter in winter, but also having to cool the building down in the summer

Yeah, uh, you know, we've struggled in, in recent years to keep the building cool enough, but really, really like the first phase on that is fabric and keeping the building, uh, you know, um, as much heat in. Uh, and also dealing with the solar gains we've applied films to this as well, so the summer where it's not getting too hot, but in the winter it's nothing, yeah, so we can't do any of that heating up great stuff until we've got stuff like this in place, so we're kind of like ahead of schedule, thank you to you. And what difference has funding made to the staff here? Um, and the wider community as well

Staff and wider community, so staff, um, our staff, er, we do an annual survey every year for our staff, we do ask them about do they think we're doing enough as an organization to deal with our own carbon footprint. You know, are we taking that seriously, and actually for many years people have been saying no, Southmead Development Trust is not efficient enough. It's not, um, credible enough on its environmental standards

So part of that net zero plan and its ambitiousness has been driven by staff and staff satisfaction with the way they work. So seeing physical big ambitious changes like the Windows has really gone down very well. We're now performing much better on that metric, uh, in the most recent survey, so that's visible, I think, um

These makes their workplaces, you know, we often have to deliver work in these spaces, so it's a massive bonus for them and their, you know, their service users, so if they're doing a group, um, community group, they, you know, it's much more comfortable, it's much more reliable, um, spaces just feels that much more quality, we like to be able to deliver quality for people, um, even if they're free er so yeah, and then the community I think we've tried to celebrate it. Uh, our community of tenants, so our customers and the people that deliver here, whether it's our NHS colleagues and our mental health teams based here or other charities that are based in the business center, obviously massive bonus for them, um, increases the quality of their office and the morale of theirstyle. So yeah, lots of feed, great feedback coming up

In fact, we've had 100% positive feedback on the windows. Excellent. And then obviously the accessible toilet is another big deal, right, um, for them as well

Excellent. How did you find? Filling out the application form and the whole application process, very good, so we do obviously loads of application forms and there's huge diversity in how they are and, Ah, very consistently, the. All the programs put forward by the Public Health and Communities team at Prest City Council have, have, balanced the right level of kind of detail with trust

I kind of use the word trust just because, You want that relationship from funder that you know you can give simple answers and they won't um, you know, and they'll they'll meet you halfway on that. Yeah, um, so yeah, I found it very straightforward, very simple and felt like there was a good dialogue from the outset as well. Brilliant

Um, yeah. Um, what initially made you apply specifically for the CRF fund? Yep. Uh, so some of the stuff I've mentioned before, like about, uh, staff morale and the our ambitions around the climate crisis, but also the cost of living crisis

We were. Facing an enormous and have faced an enormous increase in our energy bills. Um, and also we had lots of complaints from, uh, disabled service users saying they frequently couldn't access enough parking bays, they don't feel safe

We'd had previously, previously engaged Wessel, um, to look at our, how people can access and exit the building, and they'd already cited the car park as a big problem there. So that's been a long standing ambition, so when the community resilience Fund came along it's like, right, there's a real opportunity to knock a lot of these on the head, so that's why we were desperate to, to succeed. Um, what has impacted the delivery of your project? So from like filling out the forms, receiving the funding, and then delivering the upgrades, have you experienced any setbacks or any issues? Yes, yeah, I feel like we're the problem child a little bit

I I feel like I'm always apologizing to Robin and the team, um. We were very, very fortunate to get another very large capital fund, er, at the very same time that was extremely ambitious and also fought that was fraught with a lot of difficulty, a lot of asbestos removal, a lot of kind of, um, damp and lots of kind of, you know, and things that we discovered along the way, so that kind of became all consuming for my time, which meant that, um, The flexibility of the Community Resilience Fund really came to the rescue, you know, we could postpone things, we had a very long time frame to deliver, and we had a really great dialogue with the guys at the council, so I felt like we could make those decisions, but we did have to delay a lot, so that's why we still haven't delivered everything with, with the end of the project in sight, but we're, we're about to go. So now that you've received this funding, have your future plans changed since receiving the grant? Absolutely, so I'll mention one of them, so I'll

We want to get rid of these, these are absolutely ancient gas-fired heaters. Oh, I see. Really expensive to run, almost impossible to maintain due to parts, costs thousands of pounds to replace, yeah

So, these are all getting to end of life. We want to move to low carbon, uh, electric heat pumps, uh, so we can use our solar panels and other renewable energy, but we could not do that, which is imminent, we, these could break any day. They, one broke, the other, um, last winter, and we had to kind of struggle through, um

We couldn't do that without these, these, which is where, you know, without insulating the roof, which we've done, insulating the walls with cavity wall insulation, which we've done, but now the windows, we kind of almost felt impossible to do, but we've, we've done it, which means that we can now move forward with next steps. So, um, I can't really remember your question, but I felt. Oh no, no, you've answered it brilliantly

And then you know, and there's a, there's a master plan now for the car park, which we'll, we'll have to fundraise for to achieve, but this will allow us to launch that, design that, but also um. You know, hit the biggest problems first, which was the safety of our front entrance, yeah, so, um, it's got the ball rolling on these big ambitious plans that felt quite stuck for a while. OK, um, if you hadn't received the grant, where would your organizing organization be, what would you have done without the funding? Golly, well kept plugging away at the other applications, but it did

It did solve a lot of problems and like I said it has kickstar a lot. Yeah, so I'm not, I, I don't know, we'd be miles behind in our, in these plans that we've got, um, we're pretty bullish and we're pretty good fundraisers as an organization but we just wouldn't be nearly as far ahead as we have been, um, I'm actually now considering what would have happened, I feel quite dark about that, uh, because it's been such a great timely piece of investment. Excellent

Um, so time to dream a little bit. If money was no object, what would your priority be for the future? Where would you like to take this organization? And I mean just dream absolutely without any limits, without any limits. Yeah

So yeah, shall we keep moving because I can show you some of the plans we've got at the moment. So we've got we've got the rest of the, um, the rest of the windows, and we wanna make this a carbon neutral building, so we're using a lot more. There we've got some funding for heat pump conversion, but we need to do more

Um, it'd be great to make this space much more productive, the car park. Yeah. So, car parking is an important part transport infrastructure, but we feel like it's very poor use of land

So is there a way we could put solar panels above this? Is there a way that we could engage more public transport options, or like car share stuff and things like that to try and make this a more productive space? Um, is this your building? That's our building opposite, and that one, that's the ambitious capital project that we had to do alongside this one. It's a very. It's got a kind of a dungeon-esque basin below which we had to sort out to make sure the whole project came together and the asbestos removal

Oh, I see a big decision. So that's now our youth wellbeing hub. OK, so filling that up is now a big priority, and I can see the solar panels on the roof that you new solar, yeah, um, and we've got so many old more and Bruss plants

So just over to the right and on the right side of the building we've started, um, firing up our community garden. OK. And if we wanted to try and bring a bit more traffic and activation, like foot traffic to the area by pedestrianizing it, making it feel safer, making it feel more accessible, which we've launched on this project, we'd love to be able to do

Um, more of that space, so we've got a community garden idea, we'd love to do like a sauna extension to our gym. Uh, we've got ideas for a green skills academy that we're working with, with the Restore Trust. They're looking at like a temporary, um, classroom model, but we'd love to make that a more permanent extension of the Greenway Center

Uh, and we're also looking at more planting and more woodland there so it could become like a real good, uh, green zone. I mean, there's so much to do, um, we've, we've, uh, through other council funding received. We've looked at our condition and structure survey, the structure is sound, which is incredible news when you're investing in a building

You don't want it just to fall apart on you. We know this will run for the next 50 odd years, but the condition with the roofs, the, you know, the drainage systems, the, um, guttering, that you name it, will all have to be renewed in time. Uh, we've got a fundraising plan now in place for that, but those are, those are big, those are big ticket items

Um, yes, we're this is all about preparing a D wave for the next, you know, 50 years of service, um, and getting it, you know, climate resilient. Um, was there anything different or unique about the resilience Fund application? Um, or the process compared with other funding opportunities. Um, Did you find filling out the application really difficult, really easy? Found it easy

I mean, I think there's been a lot of feedback about the initial way it was commissioned and the rounds and stuff, and that took a long time. OK. um, but I think that's kind of been dealt with, um, elsewhere

We did like, I do like the idea that we focused on place-based community anchors and then cross-cutting equalities organizations. I think that's kind of a sensible way of trying to approach the city, um. So that all kind of makes sense and then the actual like nuts and bolts of applying was very straightforward, you know, it was Word documents and PDFs and stuff rather than like online portals which can be clunky and you know you you have less, you know, there's thing of time out, you have to set up a portal, there's none of that

er and then also as our project evolved, there was flexibility at all times. There was like well as long as you're, it was nice to have fun at the set, but we're more concerned with like the outcomes. That we'd signed up to deliver on energy efficiency and on access, than necessarily like oh no you told us it must be, 10 number of carpeting spaces or 10 number of windows

It was kind of like when we had to adapt the project, the team were always like, you're still achieving, as long as you can pro you can still evidence you're achieving the outcomes you promised. It's consistent with the funding we've given and that was very reassuring as we had to kind of respond to lots of new opportunities and challenges and the thing again, um, we're very lucky to have it, but it, it was quite a lot of work. Yeah, so yeah, so a lot all very positive

Excellent, excellent. Uh, last question, how do you feel about the Community resilience fund? Has it met your expectations and would you apply again if the opportunity arose? Yes. Yeah, generally and always like there's so much we can us and Bristol City Council can do together and we feel like we're a lot of alignment on priorities there

um, so we're very excited about any future opportunities to invest in our community together. I think um. Or just take a step back and just think about, you know, um

Very conscious of our. Advantage maybe amongst community led organizations in this part of the city and um, Whilst funding for buildings is all important. also funding for the services that are meant to use them

It's also really important, so whilst this is primarily a capital fund, um, we're always very aware that like resilient communities come also from the social activities and the, the youth activities and all that kind of stuff. Uh, that can then happen in the building. Um, which is obviously our bread and butter, but it'll be interesting to see how future formulations will take, but generally, yeah, it's been really good to have, um, the coun the council always indicated that they're sincere about, um

Investing in community infrastructure, but this was really strong evidence that they'd actually like no we're gonna actually make this a priority with cash as well, so, er, long may it continue, but we know cash is tight, there might be that if it can't be cash in future there might be other ways that we could be supported by leveraging access to expertise or anything, so we've, you know, um. Don't wanna For example, the Western support that we've given, I know, I imagine there was some funding involved in that, but like, we didn't receive the cash for that, we, it was crucially important for us to have access to those kind of expertise, so those kind of things will also be, Good to maintain as well. Excellent

Is there anything else you wanna add, anything else you wanna show me? Probably not, but. Sorry for being such a difficult organization to deal with, we've been like behind on all our plans and. Uh, updating progress reports and things like that, so some of that's felt a bit stressful, yeah, and maybe, maybe, um, You know, I probably work better when there's strict, stricter may maybe I work, I work, well I, I have a preference that when there's a stricter guide um deadlines and things

But I, I, I work like you. I, I think they call it the panic monster. Oh really? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you've got an assignment that has to be in, in a week's time

So you're like, oh, I've got a week, then it's 4 days, it's 3 days, the day before you panic and you get it in. Yeah, panic can be a good motivator, but equally. I, as long as we both parties believe the project has achieved its goals and we've been successful and Pris City Council have the data they need to demonstrate that and for whatever they need to do

Then it's all been good. So I thought it would be good to maybe have an opportunity to review that relationship and um you know maybe clear my own conscience. Did you find them quite understanding then when, when, yeah, you were like saying oh we need more time, this has been put back, we haven't done this, but then you just want to make sure that they're not just being very nice and actually yeah I was simply going away like I don't want to join us again, duh yeah yeah, um, yeah, but I think that's, I think that's how they wanted the fund to be, they weren't

Just being, they wanted the fund to be different, hence why we're doing this, this video, so, um, yeah, you get two types of people, so if you owe someone money, um, and you say I, I, I haven't got it, I'll pay you next week, and they're like yeah that's fine, that's fine. They genuinely mean it, there's the other person that's like, oh yeah, OK, they, they don't mean it. I think CRF are quite genuine in that

They, they understand, they've wanted this to be a bit different, I think. Yeah, great, well, that's, that'd be great to. Yeah, that's great to hear

Yeah, um, and it's felt that way. I remember I just being very reverential and anxious at the same time, but, um, yeah, no, it's been it's been brilliant and it's kickstar so much, so yeah, brilliant. Yeah, thank you

Thank you very much. Cheers.