Newcastle MRS needs a home

[bofty]

This is my first posting.

An appeal for help! 

The Newcastle & District Model railway society has until the end of March to move out of current premises and not much seems available at a price we can afford. ( need 1500 sq ft and hopefully around £5000 pa at a push. ) 

we have a few good layouts, Port Solway in P4 , Monkchester in N featured in various Railway Modeller articles and also HO German , O gauge North Eastern and a new OO finescale under construction. 

Any suggestions for premises in the Newcastle area welcome.  

Charlie. 

[Dungrange]

I can't help, but you are not alone.  The Edinburgh and Lothians MRC are also looking for new premises at the moment.  Although we have not yet been formally asked to vacate our current premises, we understand that our landlord has plans for development.  We're therefore sitting with an expired lease, paying rent until our landlord gets the planning permission he's looking for.  In the meantime, we're looking around for somewhere else.

 

Our current club room is about half the size you're looking for (~ 800 square feet) and all I can say is that there doesn't seem to be much on the market in the Edinburgh area of the size we're looking for, for less than about £6,000 per annum, which we'd struggle to afford unless we get a few more members (and that's working on the fact that the committee have the authority to double the subscription rate - a motion from last year's AGM).  The few places we have found have been let very quickly - sometimes even before someone has been able to take a look.  The ones that haven't been let so quickly, is usually because they have something wrong with them: like in need of a new roof.

 

Good luck with the hunt and hope you find somewhere soon.  You have a deadline, which we don't yet have.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Dungrange

[D9020 Nimbus]

Just a thought — there are a number of "old" railway stations on the North Tyneside loop of the Metro; could one of these have sufficient space and, if so, might Nexus be willing to rent it out?