The news of a £2.3m grant to Erith Yacht Club to expand and modernise split members down the middle. Now the dust has settled, LINDA PIPER examines what it will mean for the club.

THE Thames foreshore at Erith Yacht Club could be a world away from the industrial busyness of nearby Manor Road.

But the shabby, slightly old-fashioned image of the club will be changed forever within two years by ambitious plans to modernise, coupled with millions of pounds to spend.

Gone will be the former Norwegian car ferry — with its steep stairways, limited space and deteriorating condition — currently moored at the edge of the river and used as a clubhouse.

In its place will be a modern two-storey onshore building, with disabled access and facilities, changing rooms, a bar, a club room, outside terraces and function, training and meeting rooms with glass walls overlooking the river.

Members had already recognised that, with their clubhouse needing ever more repairs to keep it afloat, the club would need a new headquarters to progress.

As early as 2000, the first designs were commissioned, with an estimated cost of £727,000, but the club could not get funding.

In 2005, the club got planning permission for updated plans.

Again, a second bid for £500,000 under the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme was rejected, because the scheme was “not of national significance”.

But with help from Bexley Council, the club has secured £2.35m from the Government’s Sustainable Communities Fund to create a lasting sporting legacy from the 2012 Olympic Games.

With the sailing for the Olympics based at an existing facility in Weymouth in Dorset, London would otherwise have no sailing legacy to show for the Games.

The project is a huge undertaking for a club which only has 250 members.

Paul Gladden, 73, a club member since 1976, now heads the club’s project committee.

He said: “The membership profile of the club is old men, but we have a very active youth section of about 80 youngsters “But people tend to leave the club in their 20s and start coming back in their 40s.”

The club hopes to expand the membership to 600, and offer facilities for clubs, youth groups and schools to learn to sail.

Mr Gladden said: “Currently, we are not equipped for large numbers of children, or to offer sailing to disabled people.”

The club also hopes to increase income by hiring out its facilities to groups and businesses.

It needs more money to fulfil its ambitions and hopes for £500,000 from Sport England as well as raising cash itself.

The plan is to start work on-site in February.

But if the project is not finished by March 2010, the club must return any unspent cash.

Mr Gladden said: “We cannot allow the club to take on more than it can achieve.

“However, the club will not survive if it does not change.”

HISTORY IS A MOVING STORY

FOUNDED in 1900, Erith Yacht Club was originally based off West Street, Erith.

It inherited an impressive clubhouse on the riverfront at what is now Corinthian Road when Corinthian Yacht Club members decamped to Burnham-on-Crouch.

In 1929 the momentous decision was taken to move the club and rent land at Anchor Bay, the club’s present-day site off Manor Road, Erith, from Russell Stoneham Estates and the club bought a converted sailing barge as a clubhouse.

This was replaced by a former Trinity House lightship in 1946, and then by the Folgefonn.

The club bought the site in 1976 and has added more facilities.

Norwegian car ferry became club HQ

ERITH Yacht Club’s current headquarters is an ageing Norwegian car ferry.

The Folgefonn was built in 1938 and was the first roll-on roll-off car ferry used in Norway, and possibly the world.

It was bought for £12,000 in 1982 and adapted for use as a clubhouse. It now has an atmospheric bar area which includes the original bridge and the car deck is the function room.

Many original features remain, including signage and even the crew’s bunks, but the fabric is increasing expensive to maintain with age.

Parts of the hull are now dangerously thin and the club has spent considerable sums trying to keep it watertight.

Luckily, the Norwegians are interested in buying back the Folgefonn, to restore and display in a naval museum.

They have already surveyed the boat and discovered it is too frail to be towed back to Norway.

So when the time comes, it will be loaded onto a semi-submersible and carried back home.