The Spot Ulverston

Home
United Kingdom
Ulverston
The Spot Ulverston

Creating a new community space for Ulverston and surrounding areas for groups and activities which create community and make it a better place to be.
(1)

Including:

Practical support and friendship
Fun and fitness activities to connect and keep well
Making and creating space for the community including for festivals

We're putting in a bid to the Community Ownership Fund by the end of this May 2024. Watch out for ways you can input and support our efforts.

25/04/2026

☀️Beautiful weather for flags and roofing projects! Flag Festival begins today til May 10.
Team Sew couldn’t be at The Spot this year what with the lack of roof but borrowed an empty building with support again from the Digital Woodoo CIC cutting table ✂️
Very much looking forward to flag making 2027 in a non-derelict space! Spot roof continuing apace, cladding due next! 💪

28/03/2026

If you're walking past The Spot and see the Martin Hool Construction Ltd crew up there, give them a thumbs up👍Despite our week of crazy weather including torrential rain and HAIL those roof trusses and the new purlins too have been popping-up at pace. Amazing progress!

(More about the project here: https://www.thespot.org.uk/rasing-the-money)

20/03/2026

In the most beautiful Spring sunshine, The Old Mart's new roof begins!
The upshot of a lot of graft from Martin, Jareth and the Martin Hool Construction Ltd crew. The trusses were made just up the road in Flookburgh by Dalton Engineering to a design by Ulverston’s own Bleasdale Wand Consulting Engineers 💪
After a lot of hours with the colour charts we went with 'RAL6033' which sits with the colour on some of the original pillars and the big ol industrial doors inside Bay 3 (from its metal era with Versatile Precision Tools we think).
We also thought it'd pop next to the orangey sandstone and generally be an uplifting, not-boring shade to set the scene for creative, supportive community happenings within 😁

11/03/2026

It’s quite alarming to see The Old Mart lid-less but excitingly the steels for the new roof have started to arrive so it’s not for much longer 💪
Meanwhile we’ve been busy in the woods, trying to salvage as much timber as possible from the old pine trusses and purlins.

It wasn’t the original plan to renew these but we kept finding timbers that were rotten and soft in a way you don’t want the wood holding up your roof to be!

We salute them for their near 150-year service and make ready for steels that will deliver a roof hopefully fit for the next 150. As well as beams strong enough to dangle from for circus/aerial art purposes.

Huge thanks to Darryl & Jo at The Natural Charcoal Company for storage and help sorting out this epic wood pile with handy chainsaw skills. It’s been hard volunteer graft too from Simon, Jennie, Zoe, Stu, Chris & Scot but we’ve happily now salvaged all the original ironwork plus a weighty old fire alarm (with an exceedingly loud ting!).

And found the best surviving timbers to turn into something new including a bench, so when we’re done you can all pop round and Sit On The Roof.

15/02/2026

Delighted to update you that we are now asbestos free! 🙌 Also roof free but we'll be right on with the new one ASAP.

Huge thanks to the team at Kendal based Asbestos & Air Management Services who swiftly cracked-on with this task for us, removing all the asbestos cement cladding panels.

These are a low-risk product as the asbestos fibres are well bonded into the cement matrix. But they needed careful removal which they've done, carrying out the necessary air monitoring checks around the building, next to the asbestos skip, and on the crew, ensuring they were passed for everyone's safety.

It's a relief to get past this bit and look ahead, where we can stop breaking eggs and start cooking-up this omelette of ours in the form of a nourishing new community building.

Our thanks again to Martin Hool Construction Ltd for their tireless graft, keeping this huge project moving forward. And also to our lovely neighbours for patiently bearing with us through this destruction/construction phase.
If you're new to The Spot project - more about us here: https://www.thespot.org.uk/rasing-the-money

26/01/2026

2026 is off to a flier!👷‍♂️The team from Martin Hool Construction Ltd got straight to it after Christmas and the scaffolding went up with Ulverston's own Cumbria Design Scaffold
They're on with preparing for the new roof, peeling back the steel sheets and removing the soggy old insulation.
The next step is to remove the asbestos cement panels that were used on the Mart's roof (the sort of stuff you might see on old garages). While this is a low risk product, we are taking no chances. Kendal based Air Asbestos Management Services will start the careful task of removing it, panel by panel, in February. They will be booted and suited and operate an approved safe system of work for this activity, in PPE that is standard industry practice to protect those who do this work every day.
When they’ve finished (hopefully later in February) we will be completely asbestos free!!
Then we'll be able to get going with the new roof, with composite cladding that will look similar but is thicker, really well insulated and will have clearer insulated skylights to let the light shine in ☀️
Thanks to all our neighbours for bearing with us through this patch involving all the scaffolding and construction traffic.
Hopefully the weather will be kind and come Spring the big exterior works will be done and we'll be on with getting the inside ready for you 💪

24/12/2025

Ulverston Food Project will be distributing from The Spot this Christmas Eve. Drop in from 9.30 - 10.30 p.m. Come find cheer, friendly faces and last minute nosh donated by UFP's brilliant local and supermarket partners (see below for who!)

Entrance through gate on Victoria Road (next to carwash) and please note parking is very limited on the road. Tread kindly and carefully, folks.

Delighted to be able to help our UFP friends get food out to those who need it and stop it going to waste. Merry Christmas to all!

19/12/2025

Big cheers down at The Spot today for the GSK cheque presentation! Just in time for Christmas 🥳 Our huge thanks again to the GSK Taskforce chaired by Michelle Scrogham MP and to Phil Wilson, Michael Philp and the GSK crew for investing in what will be - thanks to their legacy fund - a great new community space for Ulverston. It meant a lot to be able to symbolically plant this seed today as the Glaxo team were saying their farewells.
More about our plans here: https://cumbriacrack.com/.../work-to-transform-former.../
And huge thanks to Martin Hool Construction for their hard graft getting the place ready for new roof action in January, it really is HAPPENING!!! Happy Christmas Ulverston, here's to new beginnings in 2026 x

17/12/2025

As some of you will have seen, we had an incident this afternoon down at The Spot. We've started a full investigation about what happened.

But in the meanwhile we can happily report that nobody was hurt, and that the truck is now on its way back home. All damage to walls etc will be made good, and in the meantime everything has been made safe and secure with fencing.

Apologies to anybody who was inconvenienced. And big thanks to the terrific team who dealt with the incident and ensured it was cleared quickly in absolutely pouring December rain. 😱

11/11/2025

So we’re shutting-up shop for winter while we crack-on behind the scenes with our super-duper refurbishment.

Since getting the keys this Spring we’ve managed to get bits of the building open in an unheated, rough-round-the-edges state, helped by volunteer graft.
Here are a few pictures of the busy time we’ve had from hosting exceedingly useful Adult Ed courses to seeing Lantern Jarvis Cocker emerge from The Spot to viral acclaim!
But as the weather turns, it is time to yank-shut the badly fitting front door, to say goodbye to the drips & chill… and open an exciting new chapter for The Old Mart.

Thanks to the fabulous GSK Legacy Fund we're now going to be able to:
- Give The Old Mart a new, insulated roof;
- Replace all the aged electrics;
- Install new heating;
- And refurbish it to make it a welcoming, sustainable, accessible community building 💪

When we’re done we’ll have:
- a purpose-built base for the Ulverston Food Project so they’re able to continue to support those in food poverty and save food from landfill;
- Office space for support services including Citizens Advice;
- Spaces for hire for community use including a good-sized hall, classroom plus of course a kitchen + toilets.

Facilities that we hope will underpin a thriving hub that meet The Spot's objective of ‘Creating Community’ - supporting those in need, enabling creativity, festivals and community art & helping people be healthy and well.

Building schedules are notoriously prone to flux with weather conditions in the mix, but the aim is to have the Food Project in towards the end of summer.
The full re-opening including the hall space we think will take a little longer, likely towards the end of 2026.

We’ll keep you posted as we go on this building journey to a roomier future where Ulverston has a new place to meet, make and be 😁
THANK-YOU to all those that have helped us get this far – High Winds, CGP, the Sir John Fisher Foundation, Ulverston Town Council, Ulverston BID and YOU via our Crowdfunder.
And thank-you again to GSK & the GSK Taskforce who are enabling us to make this great leap forward 👏👏👏

Address

The Old Mart, Victoria Road
Ulverston

Website

https://www.thespot.org.uk/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Spot Ulverston posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organisation

Send a message to The Spot Ulverston:

Shortcuts

Want your organisation to be the top-listed Non Profit Organisation in Ulverston?