Brymbo Heritage Group (to 2017) and Brymbo Heritage Trust (since 2017) are volunteer-run not-for-profit organisations without any rights to public funding. Facing fierce competition from across Wales and UK at every stage they have worked over the last 10+ years to persuade and convince funders to invest in a vision to sustainably protect and celebrate Brymbo’s rich and proud heritage.

 

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Our investment record (to July 2021) stands thus:

 

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As Brymbo Heritage Group:

 

2012

Raised money for initial feasibility study (£10k).

 

2013

Raised money to get two part-time workers over three years (£70k).

 

2014 -2017

Established volunteering and initial events over four years (£63k), and secured emergency funding from Welsh Government agency Cadw to remove collapsed roofs and to protect key buildings (£137k).

 

2015

Worked with Prince’s Regeneration Trust to develop masterplan (£10k).

 

2016

Secured SSSI status for the fossil forest and funds from National Resources Wales to fence it in (£27k).

 

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As Brymbo Heritage Trust, Registered Charity No 1174269:

 

2017

Create Your Space - Secured £1m from the National Lottery Community Fund for open space improvements and a further £1m for staffing and activities over 7 years 2017 to 2024. £600k of the open space funding is earmarked for three projects covering the Wonderbank, Valley Slopes and Ocknall’s Bridge, and a further £300k is for projects in the wider community, all of which remains available to be spent by 31st May 2024.

 

2017

Secured £5m in-principle from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (first stage application approved with development funding) for ‘Brymbo: A 300 Million Year Story’, the working title of the main heritage area project. Spend at July 2021 is £840k, all development funding. £4.1m becomes available once all of the ‘permission to start’ conditions are met, including those around the lease completion, planning consent, and finalised project costs/budget.

 

2018

Secured £1.1m from the National Lottery Community Fund for the Machine Shop's restoration (and for staffing once work is underway). Spend to date is for an asbestos clean and design fees of £20k, remainder awaits lease completion.

 

2017

Secured £128k from the Welsh Government’s Rural Community Development Fund for the construction of an initial shelter over part of the fossil forest. Spent £31k to date on design fees, the first container and its fit out. (Remainder lost in January 2022 due to ongoing delays in finalising the lease, meaning the Trust is now seeking replacement funding for this vital work).

 

2020

March 4th’s decision in Cardiff by the National Lottery Heritage Fund confirmed its 2017 £5m award (their largest ever award to community-led heritage in North Wales), £4.1m of which can only be spent post lease completion.

 

2019-2021 (ongoing) co-funding of £850k from a range of Welsh Government agencies and charitable trusts. Its spend over the period 2022-2027 awaits lease completion.

 

As with all charities, we make annual returns to the Charities Commission including our annual accounts. Our records are viewable on their website here

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Together BHG and BHT have now secured £9.5m of investment into Brymbo to support its regeneration and the wellbeing of our community. So far 13 jobs have been created, with 10 planned to be sustained (all but one are part time), and with 25 being created in total by 2027.

Further they have already facilitated more than £500k worth of volunteer effort, and are due to double that by 2027.

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During the Covid-19 pandemic BHT has been able to access emergency grant funding from NLHF and the Welsh Government to avoid redundancies and to support fixed and overhead costs. BHT has also accessed support through the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to allow all staff to be furloughed in-full or in-part throughout the restrictions. Together these two blocks of financial support have allowed BHT to survive and to ensure that the portion of grants from NLCF and NLHF that are for staff costs and overheads remain intact now that work can now resume.

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So far, we've spent less than 21% of the total £9.5m funding that we've raised, with most of the remainder awaiting the finalisation of the land deal. Our spend to-date against all of our grants looks like this: