Waterloo woes update

Bowling News

You may recall that the iconic home of crown green bowling, the Waterloo Bowling Club at Blackpool, has had some major problems over the past 18 months with problems with the lease and structural faults in some of the spectator stands. The change of ownership has complicated things but a new committee has worked hard to raise funds to tackle all the problems. The latest update from them has just been posted on their facebook pages and is reproduced below.

Update for you on developments at the Waterloo.

We’ve now signed off on the work we would undertake there and are in the process of sending details of it to the owner to make sure he and his advisers agree that it’s adequate. If we get that agreement, we can then move forward to get a lease put in place.

As we move into the summer - we are now starting to incur some costs in relation to keeping and maintaining the bowling green – these costs are:-

• Mower – as previously advised, we have purchased a mower and some feed. £1400.

• Cutting – the green is being cut to try and keep it in as reasonable a condition as possible. £50 per week.

• Protection of the green – Ian Fletcher (the pub landlord) is currently paying the owner rent for both the pub AND the green, on a short-term lease. We have agreed with Ian that we will make a contribution to that rent from now on, at the same rate we envisage paying the owner when we get our lease in place (initial rent on the lease - £100 per week) – and against us making that financial contribution, Ian has agreed with us that the green will not be used for anything other than bowls through the period of the short-term lease he currently holds.

We are grateful to Ian for taking that position with us – if you look at what has happened/is happening at other greens that are now beer gardens or similar – agreeing that with us is not something that he had to do. The fact that we are now incurring these costs means that we need to get on with things as fast as we can, although bowls in the normal format will not be able to resume until 2022.

One further point – we produced some accounts last year. We need to do some more - I have been meaning to do them since the turn of the year but haven’t been able to get to them. They are not straightforward to do as some of the money in the bank account at every month-end is always overpayments for future 50/50 draws - so they need some time allocating to get them spot on.

If there is anybody familiar with doing accounts, with time on their hands and can help work on this, please give me a ring (07764 699881). We are happy to give full disclosure to the bank statements, of course.

An added feature is a 3minute video I came across about Waterloo Bowling Club which may be of interest to you. 3-minute video