In May 2007 David Lodge was appointed as CEO and GMDT has undergone some functional and operational changes as a result to secure our future. The past twelve months has seen some strong support from our partners with core funding being received from Northern Rock Foundation, Northumberland Strategic Partnership and Castle Morpeth Borough Council (CMBC).
The strength of the organisation is the cohesiveness between the staff and the volunteers at both Board and interest group levels where there are shared ambitions to deliver a quality job for the community of Morpeth across a range of activities. This approach has been widened to build strong partnership working with local authorities, private sector, third sector and community organisations and we hope to extend these links going forward.
The transfer of the Castles Woods & Water budget from CMBC of £500k has enabled us to plan the delivery of a range of projects in line with the initial objectives of the scheme. We have created project boards to ensure sound decisions are made to give value for money. We are ambitious in what can be achieved through attracting match funding for projects such as heritage where we have attracted £350k investment from Heritage Lottery over a three-year period. GMDT is keen to replicate this across other areas it is involved in but there is increased competition and reduced resources from funders.
We are continually trying to improve the professionalism of what we are involved in and are keen to work with partners to utilise their skills in joint projects such as the Ice Festival, the Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering and physical regeneration projects. The redevelopment of the Town Hall, which is moving forward under our project management, has started with the exterior works followed by a programme to tackle access, interior refurbishment and potential extension to the rear, subject to availability of funding.
The reorganisation of local government has created uncertainty with a lot of third sector organisations like ourselves, which is why it is important that we can demonstrate that we are a professional organisation that works well in partnership and delivers for the community – which we hope we can through building on this year's achievements.
I would like to thank our partners, fellow Board members, interest group members and staff for their collective contributions on what has been achieved this year.
Doug Phillips
Chairman
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