A community café, a spot for ‘hot desking’ and model railway set-ups are early ideas behind a new project to bring to life parts of Spalding Station’s Grade II listed building that have been empty for 50 years.
Heritage Lincolnshire wants to hear as many ideas as possible from the public as it looks to help utilise the building that opened in 1848.
It has been granted National Lottery and UK Shared Prosperity funding and money from East Midlands Railway to draw up plans for the building. In total £40,000 has been put forward for the project so far.
As part of this ‘community audit’ the public is asked to put ideas forward for what the rooms could be, and what is needed at the station.
The survey is available online at https://tinyurl.com/msyynf6m or can be accessed from The Heritage Lincolnshire Facebook page.
On Monday, February 16, project managers Hannah Mayhew and Laura Dunham plus University of Lincoln student Ella Shannon-Smith canvassed members of the public and others using the station.
They also opened-up the rooms for members of the public to look around rooms, some of which are not thought to have been used since the 1970s.
Hannah said that while previous attempts to open the building up had failed this has ‘everyone who needs to be on board’.
“Certainly we’ve had a lot of responses that people would like a café or somewhere they could get a drink,” she said. “The staff at the counter say they’re regularly being asked where they can get a drink.
“They have community cafés at Boston and Market Rasen stations that work with local charities and are very successful.
“If we could get something like a café opened downstairs it would have someone in the building and give impetus to open up the rooms above too.
“It would be reopened in phases and there’s different entrances.
“Other ideas have included a space for model railways and some have said a space for hot-desking.
“We wouldn’t want to compete with local businesses. It’s about complementing what is already in Spalding.”
“It’s quite a big building, a bit of a rabbit warren,” said Laura. “Our job is to provide a solution for the benefit of the community using the public’s input. Work has been done to make the electric safe and we’re looking at what can be delivered in a sustainable way. It’s a real chance to shape its future.”
