A sad, bad day
The Victorian shelter by the King's Hall has been burnt down by a scumbag or scumbags unknown.
At the moment, it is unclear whether it was (a) charmless drunken youths, or (b) a local resident wanting to deny the aforementioned youths a meeting place. The CCTV on the HB Sailing Club shows the fire starting at about 2:45am, and going strong by the time the fire brigade arrived.
The shelter was the winner in a Victorian design-a-beach-shelter competition, so with luck the original plans and designs will be available somewhere (Historical Records Society, perhaps?), should anyone feel like restoring/rebuilding it.
Should it be rebuilt? If so, where?
It appears that CCC's insurance *does* cover the Shelter. Rebuild cost, I assume. Like for like, I hope. Does anyone know what the terms are? Is it a public document?
Oh dear! It appears the insurance doesn't *fully* cover the cost of replacement. One suggestion is to somehow weave it into the QE2 Coastal Park bid in order to top up the funding. This would probably mean waiting until 2012 for the replacement. In the meantime, CCC are thinking that maybe just a couple of benches where the Shelter used to be would be fine.