By Pawesome new lease of life for former Conservative Club thanks to Abbey Vets!
A positive development for the property on Bargate, which has seen disrepair and neglect build over the years, as now, a new lease of life is set for the old Conservative Club.
We spoke with Jacqueline Buck, the practice principal of the Abbey Veterinary Centre (Grimsby) Limited as well as the company director. Jacqueline, along with her husband, Charles Ross have recently bought 36 Bargate Grimsby.
“I would invite anyone to look at our previous work when creating a sympathetic extension on the current veterinary practice to enable them to visualise what we have in mind at 36 Bargate,” she said.
“We have been working hard over the last few weeks to restore the external appearance of the property at 36 Bargate, which should mean that it is less of an eyesore than it has been for most of the last ten years.
“It is very sad that it had to become this dilapidated and be abandoned for so long. I asked the estate agents whether the owners would sell it to us in the very first week it became empty but, as I am sure you know, the owners had their sights on renting it on very lucrative terms to a supermarket so my approach was rebuffed, resulting in a decade of abandonment and deterioration. Never mind! We have bought it now and will be looking after it properly.” Jacqueline said.
In 2021, North East Lincolnshire Council voted against the establishment of the new £1.25m Co-op store on highway safety grounds, maintaining that it would significantly increase the risk of vehicle collisions within busy Bargate.
After the original application was rejected the summer prior for the same reason, Co-op submitted additional documentation to address the concerns of the council and the Highway Authority. These concerns included the prospective arrangements for pedestrian access, the car-park layout, and the preservation of the 1850s listed building.
Within these documents, Co-op proposed a new access point off Bargate in the form of a right-hand turn lane.
Lara Hattle of ENGIE, which works in partnership with the council, said: “The Highway Authority believes there is insufficient road width to safely accommodate this right turn lane. The existing road layout already prevents the free-flow of traffic once a vehicle is stationary, waiting to turn into the side streets.”
Jacqueline told us more about their intentions for the sight, whilst retaining and respecting the history of the site:
“We have a tree surgeon and the tree officer coming next week to discuss getting the trees back into some sort of order as they have been neglected for a very long time. We have a surveyor coming at the start of August to advise what will be needed to prop up the corner of the building next to Augusta Street as that seems to be subsiding into the cellar and will become dangerous eventually if nothing is done.
“A pre-planning meeting with the planning officer in charge of the case and the conservation officer, as well as a gentleman from the Highways Department, happened yesterday. It would appear that our initial proposals received a fair hearing and we received a great deal of useful advice.
“This is the best we could have hoped for as we intend to conserve many of the architectural features of the building as well as its very handsome facade which faces onto Bargate. There will be many more discussions to have and planning hurdles to get over before we can conserve the building while making it useful for our business.
“Our first priority is to use the grounds as car parking for our staff. To this end, workmen have been renovating the car parking area for the past three weeks and I have dug and started to replant the border around the periphery, meeting many of the neighbours while doing so. ” Jacqueline said.
The site at 36 Bargate is planned for routine consultations and routine procedures, those for which prolonged hospitalisation and specialist care are not required. We may well also wish to have a dedicated Ophthalmology unit in the building.
“There is also the possibility of a further dedicated orthopaedic theatre specifically to meet the requirements for the performance of Total Hip Replacements which are more demanding of both staffing and space than our present orthopaedic theatre can easily accommodate.
In consequence, the building and car park at 36 Bargate would be in use only during the daytime. Our working day for non-emergency cases is between the hours of 8 am and 8 pm, starting with admissions for surgery at 8 am and ending veterinary consultations at 8 pm.
“It is likely that we would have to have an archaeological survey as well as obtain planning consent before we could even contemplate starting construction as the conservation officer reports that Anglo Saxon remains are possibly present in the site so we would need to disturb as little as possible.
“It is important to realise that these are just ideas but they do form the broad outline of what we will need to make proper use of the building while conserving its historic features,” she concluded.
