Weston College has teamed up with Weston-super-Mare Helicopter Museum to help renovate Weston Airfield’s dilapidated pilots’ block.

College students, their lecturer Steve Harris and curriculum manager Shaun Canniford volunteered to plaster the 1930s building that has laid in a derelict state since 1993.

“The Helicopter Museum approached us with this project and we were more than happy to help,” Shaun said.

“This development has enabled us to give our students the opportunity to take the skills that they have learned in the workshop and apply them in a commercial environment. Taking into account the significance of the building to the local community, it was important that the College contributed to this project.”

The project is being funded by the Coastal Communities Fund, who have earmarked £138,000 for the development, and the plaster was donated by CRS Building Suppliers, a local business that is based next to the museum in a building that was once part of the airfield complex.

Nick Burrough, Branch Manager at CRS Building Supplies, said: “This is a local project and the College and CRS both share the same vision of supporting the local community to help it grow, expand and develop.”

Alison Page, Project Manager of the redevelopment, said: “This regeneration will help Weston-super-Mare retain its links to a long history of aviation, and is about giving that history back to the local people.

“So much of our aviation history is already gone, and we want to bring it all back in to the room it started in.”

The development will finish in 2016 and open to the public as Weston Aviation Museum.

On Friday 4th December the Helicopter Museum will be holding a social event for anyone with a link to Weston-super-Mare’s aviation past.

For more information on the social event or to volunteer at the site, contact Alison on 07341 836097.