BRIDPORT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTE at 51 East Street, was founded in 1835 as a Mechanics Institute by Henry Warburton MP. Reconstituted in 1855 as a Literary and Scientific Institute, the artist Fra Newbery was a pupil and teacher at the Bridport School of Art run from the Bridport Literary and Scientific Institute building, finally it served as the town's public Library until the mid-1990s.
Over a period of years efforts have been made by various people to seek a solution to the Two Star Listed Building which is on English Heritage’s Buildings at Risk Register and which has essentially been empty and deteriorating since it's closure.
Here follows a progress report from Cllr C. Wild – 10 June 2010
The current initiatives originated with a workshop meeting held at the Salt House in West Bay in July 2008, facilitated by Chris Huxley, as part of the BLAP (Bridport Local Area Partnership) Space Needs Survey. Although no specific use was identified at that meeting, a number of ideas were discussed, and there was agreement from the principal Bridport cultural and community organisations that efforts should be made to try to retain the building in community uses in line with the aims and objectives of the Literary and Scientific Institute. This view was subsequently conveyed to the County Council under the auspices of the Bridport Local Area Partnership.
Community to be consulted on the fate of the building
In late 2009 news was received that the long-standing ownership dispute between the County Council and the Elphinstone family might be coming to the High Court in the near future. At that point a letter was sent to all parties in the dispute and to the High Court, reiterating the wish of the Bridport community to be consulted on the fate of the building, and proposing the recently formed Bridport Area Development Trust as a body to which the building could be transferred, in order to facilitate its restoration to community use or uses.
In late January 2010, the High Court, with the agreement of all parties, ruled “that it is appropriate to adjourn this claim for about 6 months so that the Bridport Area Development Trust has a reasonable time to put itself into a position where the court could, if it thought fit, properly make an order vesting the Building in the BADT to be held upon the trusts and for the purposes of the BADT.”
From that point, and with the agreement of the directors of the Development Trust, Crystal Johnson and I have taken steps, on a voluntary basis, to investigate the options for future use of the building, with a view to developing a Business plan, an essential first step to securing the very significant restoration grants for which the Development Trust would need to apply for.
(I made the initial approach to the Bridport community organisations and then to the County Council and High Court in my (then) capacity as Chair of the Bridport Local Area Partnership.)
In the meantime discussions have been held with a number of bodies who in some way have responsibility for the building, including the district council, the county council and English Heritage, all of whom have supported efforts to find a solution.
A public appeal was made via the local press in early March for anyone with constructive suggestions about possible uses for the building to come forward. A good response was received to this appeal and several visits were arranged for people who wanted to view the building for the first time or to revisit it. On 27 March a workshop meeting was held at the Unitarian Chapel next door to the Institute, to which all those who had responded or expressed interest (and all those who had attended the original July 2008 meeting) were invited. At that meeting a number of people outlined their suggestions, which it was agreed to investigate further. Several people at the meeting have since been extremely helpful in doing additional research into the potential costs and viability of their suggestions.
Public Meeting
The intention has been to hold a further meeting to report back on these further investigations and it is now planned to hold this meeting in the last week of June or first week of July. This meeting will be open to the public and any councillors who wish to attend.
Since early March, all those who have responded to the public appeal through the press, including all town councillors who responded, and the town clerk and town surveyor, have been kept in touch with developments by email on a regular basis. The County Council has been kept informed of progress in the light of the High Court deadline, which although possibly not absolute, will by then be quite close.
As has been reported recently in the press, one of the suggestions which has emerged is for the Bridport Museum Trust to investigate the possibility of taking on the lease of the building, with a view to establishing an industrial heritage centre based on Bridport’s traditional industries, with ancillary uses including flexible education and training space. One of the purposes of the meeting to be held at the end of the month will be to assess the support for this proposal and for proceeding to develop a business plan. Town councillors will be notified of the date and venue for the meeting and are warmly invited to attend.
The public meeting has now been arranged for 6 pm on Tuesday 29 June 2010, at Bridport Town Hall. All welcome.
“This is a follow-up meeting to those held in the spring following our public appeal for people to come forward with practical suggestions for the future of the building. We have followed up some of these ideas and now need decide which of these might be taken forward, so we hope that people who are interested will come along.”
Charles Wild.
