New Town team hub opens for business
FORT William Town Team’s new headquarters was recently opened in an official ceremony, writes Ellie Forbes.
Volunteers received £12,000 last year towards the new hub which now takes pride of place in the Parade, providing the town team with a better base from which to run its Adopt-a-Plot scheme and a community tool-share partnership, in conjunction with Lochaber Environmental Group.
Town team chairwoman Moira Robertson told the Lochaber Times: ‘We are really excited about the new hub, and hopefully it will be used by the community, charities and non-profit groups, they just need to get in touch through our new website.’
People wanting to get involved in the team’s Adopt-a-Plot scheme can borrow tools from the shed to do some community gardening.
Opening the hub on Sunday May 7, Ms Robertson said: ‘Thank you to Tesco for all its help. If it hadn’t picked us for the funding, and the community hadn’t been behind us, we wouldn’t have our new town team hub.’ Duty manager at Tesco Fort William Mark MacKenzie said: ‘It’s been so good to see this project from the first conversation we had and getting the Town Team involved, and seeing it step by step to the finished project.’
Deneil Snaith, who co- ordinated the project, said: ‘This is the biggest project financially we have ever worked on, but it is going to service so many things for such a long time.’
Fifteen volunteers took part in the spring clean last Sunday too, with a tidy up of the High Street and the waterfront from Morrisons to the pontoons.
The town team also has 86 hanging baskets sponsored which will be going up in the High Street at the end of May.
The group also has plans to put planters at each end of the High Street and potted trees near the benches in the coming months.
As a thank you to James Kennedy of the town team for painting cinema lane and the side of the Lochaber Times office, the Lochaber Times has donated £100 to the group.