Sleevesrolleduppery.
And a ready supply of elbow grease.
It’s a combination which can take you a long way.
And if you’re the determined and dedicated Montrose Playhouse team it’s enough to earn a two and a quarter million pound vote of confidence in the community dream which has all of a sudden become a very much closer reality.
The whopping figure – £2,260,000 to be exact – is the windfall the Playhouse project, partnership with Angus Council, has just received from the Scottish Government Regeneration Capital Grant 2019/2020 Fund, and as one of the country’s two biggest winners they can now get up on the blocks to dive headlong into the tender process.
Work could begin as early as June, and by the middle of 2020 the building on The Mall will hopefully start its second stint of service to the town as a three-screen cinema and community hub.
Opened in 1962, the pool wasn’t even afforded a fond farewell half a century later when stone-throwing vandals forced its closure a month ahead of schedule after glass from their window-breaking antics fell into the water.
The cinema plan emerged pretty swiftly after the shuttering went up on those long glass windows and the plug was pulled at the 12-foot deep end
Even fuelled by expertise, ambition and enthusiasm, the task in front of the project team must have seemed as terrifying as the climb up the 20-odd stairs to the pool’s top board this young dooker recalls from more years ago than he cares to remember.
But there was no turning back and the required response was to take a deep breath, focus and get the head down.
It’s an approach that worked well for the wee lad teetering on the edge of the high up platform, and one which has served the Playhouse project crew equally well.
Meanwhile, at a practical level they have saved hundreds of thousands of pounds by going full Nick Knowles with DIY SOS-style strip out events to progress the down-taking at the same time as building up the community engagement element of the ambitious project.
There is still the small matter of around another million quid of capital and start-up costs to find, but David Paton and his hard-working band already have ideas in hand to bring that in.
And what a springboard £2.26 million has given them to get there.
