Irwell Sculpture Trail Tales (2) – Ed Allington
In the first IST blog, I mentioned how the National Lottery Assessor, Mike Sixsmith, who recommended we receive the funding to build the trail, observed that we hadn’t bid for enough money to achieve the scale of its ambition. My previous experience had been with projects of up to about £15,000. When describing the aim of commissioning internationally significant artworks which would put IST on the world stage, I had guessed that such commissions would cost about £80,000. Mike and I were standing in Ramsbottom Market Square which was one of the highest profile sites on the whole trail. He really like the site and thought it had massive potential for a sculpture but, like with other key sites, he observed that such a location would need nearer to £250,000. It was this conversation that prompted the significant increase in the final lottery grant referred to in the last blog. Because of the high visibility of the sculpture, we created a selection panel of local councillors and o