One of favourite stops, the Sustainability Centre, is planning to transform their 'tired, old, inefficient MoD building' into an eco-friendly, state-of-the-art New Learning Centre.
Update: They've already raised £21,500 towards the £25,000 they need to apply for planning, so they just trying to raise the last £3,500. We can earn them commission at no cost to us when we buy online at popular stores like Amazon, John Lewis and many more! It all works through Give as You Live.
More details at www.sustainability-centre.org/christmaspresents, or go directly, www.giveasyoulive.com/join/sustainabilitycentre, where you'll see them under their official charity name, Earthworks Trust. But of course they'd love any other donations as well.
I hadn't realised just how much they do, from education for schools, universities, teacher training, to camping, bee-keeping, recycling, ecology, forestry, nature, and lots more. Our cafe visits barely scratch the surface. And if the hill-climb to get there is too much for any of us one day, they can even do us a green burial 🙂
It's a big, high-profile, multi-million pound project that will need big funding from the lottery and other sources. And that could help unlock funding for better cycling routes to get there.
They've asked informally for our input on cycle parking. And unusually, in advance! They know we don't like wheel-manglers, but what would we like? We've said cyclists like to be able to keep an eye on their bikes, but it would be a shame to despoil such a beautiful site with ugly steel sheffield stands.
On our coast-to-coast at Whitehaven, we could have locked to leaping stainless steel salmon. Elsewhere, we've locked to beautiful sculptures.
So my challenge to Portsmouth CTC is to come up with something more imaginative, maybe more artistic? Something we'd be proud to use in future. Over to you!