| Archive for Ghost Hunters Extraordinaire paranormal investigations ghost and ufo forum |
| Kas |
Coalhouse fort and the missing millions
http://www.thurrockgazette.co.uk/...oalhouse_fort_on_at_risk_list.php An interesting article especially as we are not aware of any 'study' let alone the 'most in-depth study ever undertaken'. No one from English Heritage has been to the fort in ages. But what had really got my goat is the comments that have been made at the bottom of the article. Here's the truth Thurrock council own the fort and have done since 1962. The fort was left to rot and eventually a group of people concerned over the worsening condition of the fort got together and formed the Coalhouse fort project (Registered Charity No.289952). In 1983 the council agreed to lease the fort to them for a peppercorn rent. The fort was in a terrible state. 
Click to enlarge With alot of hard work over many years the project managed to get the fort to a condition where it could be opened to the public. Museums and exhibits were opened inside the fort and at last the money being raised could just about sustain the fort. It costs £20k a year to keep the fort open. All of this money is raised by the volunteers. More money has to be raised to build and maintain the exhibits. And of course more money has to be raised to carry out emergency repairs. So that's alot of money we have to raise. You would think our biggest revenue would be gate money. This in reality just about covers our advertising budget. Other money is raised by our sales in our tearoom. Hardly loads there. There is of course the money raised by the paranormal nights. Last year this raised £8k. Also there is the odd tv appearence. As in Most Haunted for instance. They filmed at the beginning of December last year and the show was broardcast in March this year. They do pay to film at the fort but it is in no way alot of money, we are only taking in hundreds. The truth is though regarding MH is that they have never paid us anything. You would think that us being a charity would have made them pay promptly. Some parts of the fort are too dangerous to enter now. In fact some parts look like they could collapse any day. One bad part is the Gatehouse which is important because if it's unsafe we can't enter and neither can the public. Hence the fort would shut. 4 years ago, English Heritage deemed the Gatehouse to be an emergency repair case. It had to be repaired as a matter of urgency. English Heritage agreed to pay half of the costs. Why not all you ask? Well they probably would have but the council agreed to this on our behalf and said that as a good will gesture they would pay a quarter and the the volunteers would have to pay the other quarter. The estimate came in at £100k. So we had to raise £25k. Somehow we managed to do it but the council kept stalling. Red tape after red tape was issued by the council. 4 years later and the 'emergency work' has still not been carried out. The estimated cost of the repairs is now at £200k. £50k of which we have raised. This work would not transform the gatehouse in to a usable area. The four rooms inside would not be restored to their former glory. The work would just make it safe. The gatehouse is just a tiny fraction of the overall work that needs to be carried out. So why don't English Heritage, The lottery fund and the Thames gateway project give us some money? It's because the council are still the owners of the fort. People won't invest in us because we only have the fort on a yearly lease and the council won't extend it for a longer period. The Thames gateway project has over a billion pound to invest in the area but we can't have any of it. If they did give it to us and we restored the fort, the council would say thankyou very much and take it off us. They would probably house some Cosavan families inside and build a Mcdonalds. You see the council have a hidden agenda. Unfortuanately all the time the fort gets worse and our history dissapears forever. I just wish the public knew that we are doing everything we can. |
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| david hobbs |
Sounds like jobs, and money for the boys is coming to the fort.
It isn't what an organisation does but the things it says to justify it's existence, and of course some nice fat salaries and pensions. They will al be desparatly interested for the welfare of the fort. At least whle there is the smell of money on the wind. |
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| david hobbs |
Are there any new developments here Kas? | ||