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£50,000
for
'TMAS' project
Tredegar
Development Trust has secured the first stage of funding in the bid
to restore 10 The Circle, an historic building in the symbolic heart
of the town centre.
The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded a grant of £50,000 to the 'TMAS'
project, as part of its Project Planning Grant initiative. This will
be the first step in the programme of restoration to bring the building
back into community use. The
building once housed the offices of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society
(TMAS), one of a number of community health schemes set up in the South
Wales industrialised valleys.
The town's own Aneurin Bevan used the work of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society as his inspiration when he created Britain's National Health Service in 1948 as the Minister for Health and Housing in the post World War II Labour Government. Aneurin, known as 'Nye' Bevan, was a committee member of the TMAS for a short time in the 1920s and was also chairman of the associated hospital management committee in 1929, the year he became the M.P. for the Ebbw Vale constituency which included Tredegar.
In April 2006, Tredegar Development Trust bought the property, 10 The Circle, and the freehold from Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council which carried out structural work to stabilise the building, an integral part of The Circle.
The building has now received a temporary facelift so that the Communities First team in Tredegar can use it while plans are being drawn up for a longer-term restoration project with the £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded in October 2006. Communities First is launching an art competition to tie in with the building's historic connection with Nye Bevan and the NHS. More details about the artwork competition will be announced soon.
With the H.L.F. funding, a detailed management conservation plan will analyse the building's social heritage, future audiences, staff and volunteer training needs, access needs, and overall sustainability of the project. This development work will take a total of about six months, and once completed, the Trust intends to make an application for a full Heritage Lottery Fund grant. An emphasis in the restoration will be on maintaining traditional construction skills.
"This is an exciting project for Tredegar," said Mr Graham Hathaway, the Director of Tredegar Development Trust. "The Trust regards this building as of national importance because of Tredegar's pioneering role in the development of the National Health Service. "It presents a unique and important challenge for us. We also want to see how the community feels it should be developed."
The Trust wants to see the building restored to what it was in its heyday under a 'looking back and looking forward' strategy and then used by the community.
The project has already won the backing of a number of organisations,
including Tredegar Town Council, Tredegar Local History Society, Tredegar
Archive Group, Tredegar Camera Club and the Medical History Forum in
Wales.
Poet Patrick Jones has written a poem 'circles of light', in
support of the campaign. A short four-minute film on DVD, starring well-known
local man Trevor 'The Milk' Jones' talking about Nye Bevan and explaining
to a group of children from the town's Kidz R Us drama group why the
creation of the NHS was so vital is available for viewing on the Catapult
page of the Tredegar Development Trust website on www.tredegar.org.uk.
The film was made by staff and volunteers from the Catapult resource
centre. Details about another Catapult film, the award-winning The
Envy of the World are also available on the website. DVD copies
are available for sale.
Messages of support for the TMAS project have been received from Neil and Glenys Kinnock, Welsh Assembly Members and MPs including the late Peter Law, Paul Murphy, Hywel Francis and Don Touhig, and many others. Please see the 'Your Say' page on the website.
If you have any suggestions about future use please write to 'The TMAS project', Tredegar Development Trust, Aneurin Bevan House, 40 Castle Street, Tredegar, NP22 3DQ or e-mail your comments to the pressoffice@cradleofnhs.org.uk. A 'Friends' group is also being set up.
Among possible future uses for the building once it is restored are as:
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an archive, possible about Aneurin Bevan and the Medical Aid Society, or perhaps an oral history project about the Society's members.
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a community function room as well as an arts and crafts studio;
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a centre for the history of medicine and health;
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a centre for developing local strategies for healthy living;
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a centre for field-study packages of local social and political history for students under the umbrella of developing Tredegar's tourist and visitor potential.
"Any suggestions about future use which the steering committee / Friends' group could consider would be most welcome," said Mr Hathaway.
Please write to the Tredegar Development Trust at Aneurin Bevan House, 40 Castle Street, Tredegar NP22 3DQ or e-mail your comments to pressoffice@cradleofnhs.org.uk. Excerpts from these will be included on the 'Your Say' page.
One poem, two plays and three films... * Patrick
Jones has written a poem circles
of light in support
of Tredegar Development Trust's campaign to restore 10 The Circle.
To see a film of Patrick reading his poem
please visit the Catapult page of the Trust's main website on
www.tredegar.org.uk. * See Tredegar's own Trevor 'The Milk' Jones telling the story of why the NHS was founded to a group of children from the Kidz R Us drama group in a short film on the Catapult page of the Trust's website www.tredegar.org.uk. Kidz R Us made a highly successful appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2006 with the play The Adventures of Nellie Nettle. |
