A HISTORIC building in Moffat is one step closer to being leased by a club who wants to expand its facilities.
The Proudfoot Indoor Sports and Social Club currently occupy the Proudfoot Institute building rent free, while Dumfries and Galloway Council are responsible for the structural, exterior and internal elements of the premises in Mansfield Place.
But club members now want to take it over fully, including starting to pay rent, so they have asked the council to grant them a long lease.
And they hope the move will also allow them to grow the facility.
If the council grants the club’s lease request, the club would then take full responsibility for the maintenance and repair of the ‘PI’, as it’s called locally.
Rent paid would provide an income for the Proudfoot Endowment Trust to be used to fulfil its other purposes.
The request will go before members of the Annandale and Eskdale Area Committee next week and they will be asked to agree to recommend that the full council approves the terms of the resolution.
Annandale North councillor Stephen Thompson is pleased the change looks set to be finally happening.
He said: “It only took about ten years, and a variety of short-term solutions in the intervening period, but finally the necessary work has been done and a report is going to the Annandale and Eskdale Area Committee to recommend to full council, as trustee of the Proudfoot Endowment, that it executes a trustee resolution to amend the purposes of the Proudfoot Endowment to enable the trustees to grant a long lease of the Proudfoot Institute to The Proudfoot Social and Recreation Club in Moffat.”
The Proudfoot Endowment was settled by Willian Proudfoot in 1889 for the benefit of the working men of Moffat. Its trustees used the Trust fund to acquire what was then the Moffat Working Man’s Institute and it was used as a reading room, a library and a recreation hall for the benefit of working men which. The trustees later provided other facilities such as baths and newspapers.
Today it is home to many clubs and hosts regular activities, including quizzes, dance classes and pool tournaments.
