Plans to light up some of Rotherhithe’s landmark buildings to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower in 2020 have moved a step closer.
More than £30,000 has been raised to allow a feasibility study to be undertaken. £20,000 has been contributed by the Greater London Authority with the balance coming from local people, businesses and organisations.
WE HIT OUR TARGET TODAY – 3 DAYS BEFORE MONDAY’S DEADLINE – AND WE’VE EXCEEDED IT! We never believed for a moment that it would be possible to raise such a significant sum in such a relatively short space of time, but thanks to YOU and all the other 176 generous pledgers we have actually managed to achieve our goal.
We are now in overfunding mode! This is a wonderful – and very unexpected – position to be in. It will still be possible to make a pledge for the next couple of weeks, and as stated on our Spacehive project page all the additional funds will be held in reserve to put towards the cost of the installation of the lighting scheme later on, after the technical feasibility study has been completed.
It’s been suggested that there is potentially funding available in another mayoral funding pot to cover part of the cost of the installation, and last week I was given a promise of corporate financial support for the installation, which is very exciting! But there is lots more work to do.
We want to move the process forward as quickly as we can now, and we are still hoping that there might be time for this legacy lighting scheme to be installed by July 2020 when the Mayflower 400 celebrations/commemorations begin. We have already arranged to meet with the conservation architect and the lighting designer in January to discuss next steps. And if you would like to learn more about the proposed scheme, evening lighting demonstrations will be available for local friends and neighbours – and for anyone else who’s interested – before design development.
Please help us by sharing this good news with all your networks and your social media.
THANK YOU AGAIN for your support and for your enthusiasm and for making it possible for us to take our exciting vision forward to the next stage.
Festive greetings and very best wishes for 2019.
Clare and the Illuminate Rotherhithe! campaign team
Here’s the update that Clare Armstrong – who devised the project – shared with backers on the Spacehive crowdfunding site: