Cambo Heritage Trust and The Stables Project An update, June 2016

Cambo Heritage Trust has greatly increased its capacity and now has two full time staff working to deliver a wide range of engagement programmes around and in the local community. Catherine Cumming, Learning & Engagement Officer has been in post since July 2015. Her remit centres on forest learning, schools, volunteer co-ordination and a regular public programme for children and families. Keri Ivins, Development Manager joined Cambo Heritage Trust in January. Keri’s focus is the development of the HLF Activity Plan, community partnerships, marketing and development of the arts programme. She also brings an element of essential fund-raising expertise in-house.

Activities and outreach: We are currently working with a range of community, charitable and arts organisations in the development and delivery of programmes. These include: Rural Skills Partnership, Options in Life (advocacy and support for adults with disability), The Inclusion Group (charity for people with additional support needs), Rymonth Housing (supported living for adults), Fife Gingerbread, Homestart, Nursery School, Madras College, Scottish Fisheries Museum, East Neuk Open Studios initiative, Fife Contemporary Art & Craft, Colinsburgh Primary School, Anstruther Primary School, University, Gibson House (residential care home) and Families First St Andrews.

In the period July 2015 to March 2016, Cambo Heritage Trust has worked with 1,138 participants of a range of ages and abilities, both at Cambo Estate and in Schools and other community facilities. This includes 287 local children and 372 adults with additional support needs. Numbers are limited by access to appropriate facilities and will increase significantly when the Stables’ Learning Loft and North Courtyard ‘inclusion and volunteer hub’ are operational. Highlights of the ongoing programme include:

- Weekly ‘Creative Breaks’ workshops for adults with additional support needs and their carers led by a professional artist. Since launching in October 2015, 209 participants have accessed this respite programme which is funded by Share Care . This currently takes place in Cambo Farmhouse conservatory where the space capacity has been reached. With no fully accessible toilet this opportunity cannot be offered to people with very severe physical disability until the Stables is operational. - Cambo Conservation Volunteers for adults with additional support needs. This programme provides peer learning opportunities in a range of woodland conservation and carpentry skills with participants referred from local organisations. This group forms the basis for the development of the social enterprise and inclusion hub in the North Courtyard of the Stables project. Around 30 participants per month access this programme currently. - Monthly Kids Adventure Club for local children age 6 and over. This is a pilot forest learning club attracting around 12 local children per session from Crail and which will be greatly extended when facilities allow. - ‘Wild Cambo’ events for children and families from the local community. This includes the Soil and Sea festival in September, Octoberfest, Snowdrop festival and upcoming Wild Garlic May Day festival. This programme centres on exploring healthy, active lifestyles and nutrition through fun, hands on outdoor activity linked to local fresh produce and the natural environment of Cambo. When cooking facilities are in place in the redeveloped Stables this programme will include further cooking workshops and demonstrations for children, families and community groups. This is currently supported by the Community Food Fund.

The Stables: Capital works are progressing well on an agreed, phased basis. Permission to Start (1) was granted by Heritage Lottery Fund in October 2014 and Phase1, replacement of the Glasshouses, is now complete. Phase2 comprises the main Stables ‘block’, incorporating the North Courtyard, learning, exhibition and interpretation spaces, toilets, café and shop. A competitive tender review process has identified a preferred contractor and early structural works commenced in April 2016. Wider works will continue throughout 2016 and 2017, as fund-raising continues. We anticipate being fully operational by 2018.

We have been successful in securing valuable revenue support to help ‘bring the Stables alive’, and staffing levels and capacity have greatly increased in the last year, supporting activities and outreach as described overleaf. As well as Keri and Catherine, a peripatetic (voluntary, p/t) Events Manager has been a great asset to us. We have been additionally supported by an Arts Consultant, appointed with support from Creative Scotland, to dovetail cultural/arts activities and learning opportunities into the wider Stables Activity Plan. Specialist sessional staff and support workers continue to support specific activities where necessary. We are confident that in-house staff capacity, large team of committed volunteers and Trustees, as well as the Stables’ engaged and proactive professional advisory team (Architect, QS, etc) will see the Project to successful fruition within the timescales outlined above.

The Stables is truly a transformational project for Cambo Heritage Trust, with sound strategic backing from Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Environment Scotland, Europe, Fife Council and myriad others. Our urgent need is to secure sufficient additional capital funding support to help leverage ongoing local funds and partnership. Closing the final funding gap for capital costs is proving extremely challenging. We have undertaken a robust value engineering exercise to cut costs without compromising the overall scheme, as well as prepared a contingency plan, based on further phasing (which adds costs in the longer-term). Our funding package to date already includes £500K of loan money. The consequence of not proceeding with capital developments at the soonest opportunity is that construction costs continue to escalate, the target is never achieved, and our delivery potential is limited/risks failure (since original budgeting in March 2013, capital costs have increased dramatically, as per industry-wide market conditions).

Overall costs break down as follows (NB: in-kind costs and contributions are now also included in these figures, and corresponding cash equivalents are also included in our income figures, below):

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 (post-tender value-engineering) (re-scoping/future phasing) £525,214 CAPITAL (Glasshouses, Phase1) £525,214 £2,867,739 CAPITAL (Stables, Phase2) £2,559,667 £116,626 CAPITAL (car-park; in-kind by Cambo) £116,626 £166,104 INTERPRETATION* £166,104 £226,622 REVENUE *(over 3 years) £226,622 £253,890 REVENUE (to date, inc. some in-kind) £253,890 £4,156,195 TOTAL £3,848,123

* frozen at 2013 budget levels.

Funding support committed to date totals £3,869,216 (including up to £500K loan funding from the Architectural Heritage Fund), with applications to a total value of £390K pending, and additional sums identified to apply for as necessary over the coming months. Strategic grant uplifts from Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), as well as Historic Environment Scotland (HES) have recently been agreed. Cambo Estate are committed to temporarily underwriting the remaining funding gap while works continue and fund-raising continues through 2016.

The challenge: We are committed to accelerating elements of works onsite (as per the Glasshouses, Phase 1), to limit the impact of delays and any further time-related capital cost increases, ie: structural and servicing works will be prioritised, as will the basic internal fit-out of The Stables, followed by tailoring and bespoke fit-out of selected internal spaces as funds allow (as per Scenarios 1/2, illustrated above). This approach also enables a steady growth in delivery of our well-developed Activity Plan, ongoing local outreach and wider community and partnership work – all ensuring continued impact, relevance and evolution of Cambo Heritage Trust and the Stables Project, to most effectively meet demand (and to leverage ongoing funds).