Public consultations at BF Adventure

Plans unveiled for The BF Adventure Project

A charity and outdoor adventure centre near Penryn is unveiling plans for an exciting development project which will help it continue its work with challenged young people in Cornwall.

BF Adventure, formerly known as the Bishop’s Forum, has drawn up plans for urgently needed new facilities at its Goodygrane site to maintain its work supporting the community and specifically children and young people from disaffected and disengaged backgrounds.

The development, called the BF Adventure Project, will offer indoor learning space, wet weather cover for up to 11 groups, accommodation and much improved facilities to further increase the quality of the services on offer.

For many years the charity has operated from a collection of old portacabin buildings with limited under-cover or storage space but the time has come for change.

The project is set to go to Cornwall Council’s planning department in May, and this month BF Adventure is carrying out public consultations for people to hear more about the development and offer their views; these take place on Tuesday, April 27 at Treverva Village Hall and on Wednesday, April 28 at Mabe Village Hall.

The centre will be holding an open day on May 15 to display the plans and gain valuable feedback from local residents.

BF Adventure’s chief executive, Tony Hogg said: “We urgently need to improve our facilities to become less weather dependent and more sustainable as an organisation. With more than 8000 people passing through our gates each year, the winter months can be particularly challenging for us”

“The BF adventure project will benefit the whole community from children and young people that have been excluded from school to long term unemployed adults and people with disabilities as well as customers that just come for a fun day out. We also plan to open the site to the public to enable them to enjoy the new facilities.”

The Project comprises six buildings in all, each of which have been designed to function as close to carbon neutral as possible.

These include a bunk house to improve overnight accommodation, an activity barn with space for equipment storage, an indoor climbing wall and finally a ‘hub’ building with four classrooms, a reception and café/lounge. There are also plans for further outdoor facilities such as a bush kitchen and  bush camp complete with open fire for cooking, compost toilet and space for eight to sleep.

“Through the BF Adventure Project we aim to employ renewable sources of energy throughout to lower costs and reduce the impact of construction by keeping suppliers as local as possible.”

BF Adventure was established 21 years ago as the Bishop’s Forum to offer outdoor activities to socially and economically deprived young people in Cornwall.

The centre also offers activity days for private groups, team building and leadership courses for companies, nature walks and workshops of which all proceeds go back into its charity work. Further support is gained through corporate partnerships and donations.

www.bfadventure.org

Posted 15th May 2010  by member BF Adventure