Yesterday we had a meeting with the council and at last got to present our business plan.

Our plan is quite comprehensive, including restoration of the building and development of the site as a whole to becoming a unique heritage site accessible to all.

It is not an exaggeration to say that it was well received. The councillors were impressed with our ideas and our obvious passion towards seeing them realised.

Although this is indeed positive news, we still have several hurdles to cross. We have more meetings to have and many more councillors to impress. But we will bask for a moment in our success. We are not certain what hoops we still have to jump through, but we have all upped our intake of spinach, just in case the last round is a best of 3 arm wrestling competition! (It worked for Popeye!)

Date of next meeting to be confirmed.
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​The sale was withdrawn and we barely had time to celebrate before the council announced the building was to be put up for auction on 4th September. On 30th August at a Public meeting organised by Friends of Birley Spa, our MP Clive Betts was able to state that the auction had been postponed, possibly indefinitely. We were to have a meeting with the council to discuss our plans to secure the future of the site.
Prior to the meeting an application had been submitted to make the Spa an Asset Of Community Value, which meant the council would have to give us 6 months notice to sell the building, this was granted at the beginning of November. Within a fortnight they gave us notice they were to sell the building in 6 months.
We finally had our meeting with the council in December. During this it became apparent that the fundamental issue with the councils view of the situation as opposed to ours is that the building comes under one department and the grounds come under another. We, and everyone who knows and loves the site view it as a whole, because it is. 
The spring rises in the Bath House and flows through the plunge pool into the stream, which feeds the pond, which then returns to a stream, which flows through to the Shire Brook Valley Nature Reserve. Selling the building, despite it being listed and having caveats regarding heritage and water source, is a recipe for disaster. See sheffieldoldtownhall.co.uk/ if you think we are wrong.
At the conclusion of the meeting we were invited to produce a viable business plan.
On 5th March 2019 we had a meeting with the council, where we were to showcase our business plan. We were, however, prevented from doing this as Property services intend to offer a conditional tender to selected interested parties. To hear ours would be a conflict of interest. This totally contradicted what we had been told.
We have another meeting towards the end of March where we hope to hear that this process has been halted.

On Friday 15th March we had a visit from the council. Coucillors Paul Wood, Jim Steinke, Bryan Lodge and Denise Fox came to have a look around. Councillors Wood and Steinke had not been before and I think the site as a whole was quite a revelation to them. it is so hard to explain just how special this place is. Better to let the building speak for itself! Hopefully this will help in our next meeting. Fingers crossed!