News Letter [issue 37] - Ravensbury Mill update

Ravensbury Mill update

The Lottery Bid:

The consultants, Acanthus Wrightson, are close to finalising the preliminary bid for the funding that would enable the full scale development bid to be launched. Much useful clarification of what we are trying to achieve has come out of this, and what was initially a difficult process of admitting the shortcomings in our original bids has turned to an increasing excitement at what the new approach will bring to us, the Museum and the Wandle Valley.

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The Lease at Ravensbury:

Much though we would like to be in occupation before the bid is finalised, progress has been stalled by the outstanding works to be completed by either the new freeholders, or by the original developers (part of the difficulty is we don't know which yet). We can not afford to sign the lease and become liable for those works, but the decision on who has to do what and by when is in the hands of Merton's planning and enforcement office, who are currently struggling with a huge workload. It will happen, but we are in their hands as to when. The photo shows the exposed beams above the waterwheels, with only his floorboard to protect the resident in the flat above.

When after the invention of the scooter popularity was achieved several importers realised its potential and flooded the market with cheaper low grade elastics, for others in France had realised the potential of this product at about the same time. This brought a new dimension into the product by showing how important it was for the luggage elastic manufacturer to make his own elastic cord and fittings in order to compete, so these fittings were first tackled, then in 1963 came the opportunity to buy a plant producing the cord.