BUDE Surf Life Saving Club and Bude Cleaner Seas as a partnership have made it through to the second stage of The Coastal Communities Fund Round 5, and are looking for letters of support from the public.

The fund has £40-million available for spend from April 2019 to end of March 2021. Funding will be awarded to projects over £50,000 that will ultimately lead to regeneration and economic growth whilst directly or indirectly safeguarding and creating sustainable jobs.

The bid from Bude named Saving Lives, Saving Seas, Securing Livelihoods is to provide a new home for Bude SLSC forming an Environmental Centre on the current Bude SLSC site with the creation of five jobs. If successful, this will mean a major government investment in Bude and the formation of a new and innovative way forward for beach safety and the environment.

Well known as the UK’s first Surf Life Saving Club and famous for its popular Christmas Day Swim, Bude SLSC provides surf life saving training to over 100 adults and intermediates and well over 150 ‘Nippers’. The club provides a voluntary service to the public and assists the professional lifeguards throughout the summer season. The club is responsible for training many of the young people of Bude and surrounding area who go on to become RNLI lifeguards on local beaches.

Bude Cleaner Seas Project was set up in 2013 to ensure that the bathing water quality in Bude was as high as possible by working with organisations, businesses and individuals. In 2016 Bude Cleaner Seas held Bude Wave Conference, which invited environmental leaders to Bude to speak on environmental pollution, marine pollution, climate change and the economy and health of the community. Since then the project has been recognised by Prime Minister Theresa May and North Cornwall MP Scott Mann for their work and was responsible for sending Bude ReFILL cups to Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove, and then the whole cabinet in January 2018.

The Coastal Communities Team in Bude was set up to help support bids to the Coastal Communities Fund and have supported this bid from the first to second stage. Paul Tilzey, Bude Coastal Community Team chairman, said: “The ethos underlying community teams is collaboration, and we are wholeheartedly backing the efforts of BSLSC and Cleaner Seas in this crucial stage 2 grant application, having been involved from the beginning.

“This project is a great example of the potential benefit to the local community from working together, as it ticks so many boxes. Firstly, there is economic importance to the local community if the new building comes about; it will help environmentally, both the marine environment and ‘green’ tourism; and has social, lifestyle and wellbeing impact. It also fulfils some of the aims set out in the Bude-Stratton Neighbourhood Plan, and Cornwall.”

The grant would provide funding to rebuild the existing dilapidated SLSC building and to employ a team of Bude Cleaner Seas specialist staff. The building will provide: A base for the first ever British Surf Life Saving Club and other water-based clubs; A base for Bude Cleaner Seas and environmental initiatives in North Cornwall; A base for the RNLI at Crooklets Beach; A teaching and learning facility for environmental education; A new community venue; An iconic and modern structure in a key location.

Avril Sainsbury, from Bude Cleaner Seas Project, said: “Bude’s economy is reliant directly or indirectly on the tourism industry, which in turn is reliant on clean and safe oceans and beaches. Success with this bid would be a game-changer and facilitate the environmental organisations in Bude to take their work to the next level. We’d like to see bathing water quality less reliant on rainfall as well as empowering the local community even more in making positive changes that will benefit Bude and surrounding area both environmentally and economically.”

Surf Life Saving training will include environmental awareness and knowledge for all children and members and there will be environmental training for all local children.

A spokesperson from Bude SLSC said: “Being the first surf life saving club in the UK, Bude SLSC has a proud tradition of offering our young people opportunities to train and obtain internationally recognised qualifications in surf life saving techniques. Over the years we have trained many of the RNLI lifeguards you will meet on our beaches and this new centre will give us the opportunity to not only increase our training activities but also foster closer ties with the RNLI.

“We are particularly excited about being able to offer environmental education in conjunction with beach and surf safety sessions. The new centre would also be available to other community groups who would hopefully be able to increase their work with all elements of our community.”

The bid needs as many letters and emails of support as possible for the application, so the team is asking readers to ask friends and family to send their own letters or emails — just a few lines or a paragraph to say why you support this project and the difference you think it will make.

Letters of support need to be with them by Monday, January 21.

Please send your support letter or email to: [email protected]

Or if writing, use this address: SL,SS,SL at 4 Bramble Close, Widemouth Bay, Bude EX23 0PJ.