Mexborough & Swinton Times, July 28
Denaby Welfare Scheme
Comprehensive Recreation Centre
Probably Ready in May
As previously announced in the “Mexborough Times”, the contract for the erection of the handsome Recreation Institute at Denaby main which is to be provided from the Miners Welfare Fund, has been let to Mr. W. G. Robson, who is to build the Institute, including the covered swimming bath, for £14,408. work has already commenced, and it is hoped that the building will be available for use next May. It is probable that Colonel G. R. Lane-Fox, M.P., secretary for mines, and Mr. Herbert Smith, president of the Miners Federation, will be invited jointly to perform the opening ceremony. It is also likely that arrangements will be made to mark the occasion with a cricket match between Denaby and a team from the Mines Department.
Particulars of the scheme have already appeared in the “Mexborough Times”. The Institute is to be erected between the cricket and football grounds, with a frontage to each, on land owned by the Denaby and Cadeby Colliery Company, part of the site being at present occupied by the canteen in the south-east corner of the cricket ground. The new Institute will serve the purpose of a cricket pavilion, and the accommodation will include a tea room as well as dressing rooms and cricket store. On the ground floor there will be a large billiards room, a reading room, smoke rooms, bar, vestibule, etc., and on the first floor a very large lecture room.
On the east front there will be dressing accommodation for the football teams. The swimming bath will adjoin the Institute, with entrance from it as well as separate entrance from outside the building. The total dimensions of the swimming bath slightly exceed those of the Large Hall, the largest public building in the district. The plunge bath will be ninety feet by forty, and the total area of the building will be 130 feet by 60 feet, giving ample accommodation for spectators at swimming galas, etc., and in the winter, when the baths will be converted for use in connection with dances, whist drives, cinema shows, and other entertainments.
In addition to the cost of erecting the buildings, it is estimated that £4,000 will be required to fit and furnish them, so that the total cost of the scheme will be a little over £18,000. The amount allocated already from the Miners Welfare Fund to this scheme is about £17,000, £3000 of which has already been forwarded. The allocation, however, is based on an earlier calculation that the amount available from the fund for local welfare scheme would be equal, from the five years (1920-25) during which the Find is accumulating, to a flat rate of 70/- per man engaged in the industry.
Output, however has increased so appreciably since that calculation was made, that the figure has been amended to 86/- per man, an increase of nearly 23 per cent., with a prospect of a further surplus available if the curve o output continues to rise. So that there is a distinct likelihood of a further grant for welfare work in Denaby Main and district of £3,000 or £4,000. The grant of £17,000 already allocated does not take account of a sum of £3,060 which has been voted for the benefit of Mexborough on account of the 875 Denaby and Cadeby mineworkers who live there. This sum of £3,060 is included in a total of £10,000 which in intended to be spent on welfare schemes in Mexborough. Of that sum £5,500 has already been allocated for the purchase and laying out of a comprehensive athletic grounds. In the case of Mexborough also it is anticipated that a substantial supplementary grant will be available from the surplus over earlier estimates of the yield of the fund.