NSVL's Current Facilities

The rapid growth of NSVL means that it is now one of the largest and most successful lifeguard clubs in the country. With this growth the current headquarters have become far too small, with all parts of the building including training room, office, changing rooms and equipment stores now bursting at the seams.

Over the years, NSVL has built up a first class reputation locally, regionally and nationally. However this reputation is not matched by the condition of the current base, with the 80 year old units showing their age. In addition to the poor physical condition of the building fabric, the units are damp, draughty and cold all year round. They do not comply with disability and equality legislation and access is poor.

It is clear that, in looking to continue and build on the success NSVL has enjoyed so far in its short history, a step change is needed in the premises it occupies.

Options available

Several options have been identified and analysed. While the existing premises could be refurbished, this would cost a great deal of money and the refurbished premises would be no larger. There are also several problems that NSVL would be unable to rectify – for example the poor access to the promenade.

NSVL has already undertaken a survey of buildings along the North Tyneside coastline. Unfortunately all are either occupied or not large enough for NSVL's aspirations.

This only leaves one option – construction of a new training centre.

The vision

NSVL has a vision that its new training centre will be a lifesaving and lifeguarding hub – regionally, locally and nationally. In addition to allowing NSVL to increase the frequency and capacity of its existing programmes run from the beach base (including lifeguard, lifesaving and open water training), it will allow the provision of a wide range of new activities which cannot be provided from the current facilities.

These include drop-in Heartstart and Save a Baby’s Life sessions, beach and water safety programmes for schools and other youth organisations, and much more. We also envisage that the training centre will be a valuable facility for other community and voluntary groups locally.

All the changes the new training centre will facilitate come down to one outcome – ensuring more people have the knowledge and skills to deal with emergency situations.

Where we are now

We are currently starting out on the path to achieve the goal of the new training centre. Business plans, building designs and funding applications are being drawn up.

We are also researching the level of need for the new facility and our work to date shows that need is great.

The results of a questionnaire sent to all GP surgeries in North Tyneside (response rate 50%) revealed that:

• No GP surgeries currently have access to the Heartstart or Save a Baby’s Life scheme
• 86% would be interested in referring people to the Heartstart scheme if it was available locally, 93% would do the same for Save a Baby’s Life.

A questionnaire was sent to all schools in North Tyneside(response rate 37.7%) and the results revealed that:

• Only 41.4% of schools currently provide water safety advice and information to their pupils.
• Only 1 school (3.4%) has access to water-based lifesaving classes for their pupils.
• Only 17.2% of schools currently provide basic resuscitation classes to their pupils.
• All but one school (96.6%) would be interested in a water safety programme for their pupils.
• 89.7% of schools would be interested in their pupils learning basic life support skills.

The new Training Centre will provide a world-class facility to help meet these needs.

Letters of support for the new Training Centre have been received from:

• Cullercoats RNLI
• Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade
• RNLI North Division
• British Heart Foundation
• Boscombe Lifeguards
  
• Rubber Soul Surf Co
• Alan Campbell MP

How you can help

As a volunteer organisation with limited funds, we are having to do and fund the initial stages of work ourselves. We could do with help for many things – from assistance with our business plans, through architects and planners, to fundraisers. Just get in touch.

And of course, if you have £1m spare and would like to have the new training centre named after you, we’d be more than happy with this!

For more information contact the NSVL Secretary, James Parkinson, on This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or 07754 271148.