Message from Ian Warhurst, CEO, Grafton LSR

Dear Working At Height Limited,

Firstly thank you Ottie and Paul for your enduring support to Bloodhound and the team’s mission to achieve a new land speed record and inspire a generation of future mathematicians, engineers, technologists and scientists.

As a valued project supporter, I have asked Frantz Nehammer, our Head of Engineering Delivery, to make contact with all product sponsors to provide an update on the projects progress and our revised plans for 2020 in light of the recent virus outbreak.

Bloodhound’s journey continues to be anything but straight forward, and since our huge successes from last year’s high speed testing in South Africa, we have been working hard to secure the funding for this final phase, where we hoped to break the record mid-2021.

Despite the extremely encouraging results from the trials, which show that with the extra thrust from the monopropellant rocket the car is capable of smashing the record, the appetite for investing in the proposition has almost completely evaporated with the uncertainty brought about by COVID-19. The sponsorship industry has literally shut down! This means our ability to raise the necessary funds in time and consequently the window to conduct the Land Speed Record (LSR) campaign safely in 2021 is now very likely to be missed. 

As a result, we are planning to go into hibernation to reduce the monthly overheads to an absolute minimum. We are also looking at crowdfunding and other routes to try and cover the unexpected extra costs associated with this time delay but we are confident this interim funding will be achieved through the fan base. At the right time later this year, we will activate a further search for new financial sponsors – hopefully in a changed landscape where sponsors are looking for new ventures after so many cancelled events. 

What does this mean for you? For the time being hopefully very little. The new company I set up which now owns the Bloodhound project - Grafton LSR Ltd - is able to provide assurance it will continue to maintain custodianship of your equipment under a skeleton crew at the Land Speed Record Centre at Berkeley Green UTC. It remains safe, secure and insured and, should the project face permanent closure, we will be in touch to arrange return or collection of your equipment as appropriate. It is important to understand that as the project is now under my private ownership, I will not allow a situation to arise where it runs out of funds and has to enter administration. I have kept back an amount of funding which – should the need arise – will allow us to close down the project in an orderly manner. 

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. Meantime, I would be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of this message and confirm that you are content to continue supporting Bloodhound by maintaining the status quo for the time being. 

From all of us at Grafton LSR we wish you all good health, wellbeing and the best of luck through this challenging time.