Sutton Veny Village Message Board

VILLAGE HALL REFURBISHMENT APPEAL
VILLAGE MEETING
1ST OCTOBER 200215 July 2002

As many of you know we have been waiting for the decision regarding our Lottery Grant which was a significant proportion of the funding needed to refurbish the Village Hall. Unfortunately we have been unsuccessful in our bid due to not meeting the criteria that the Community Fund has now decided to apply. It seems that rural communities such as ourselves are not at or even close to the top of the agenda now forming policy within the Community Fund. It is also unlikely that Lottery Funding will be available next year, a quote from the rejection letter states “......Your group can submit a fresh application at any time but you need to bear in mind that out grants budget is declining. This means that we are finding it ever harder to fund even those projects that meet our funding priorities.”

Clearly we will therefore have to revisit the problem to identify alternative ways of raising the money and structuring the improvements to the Hall, as we as a committee are determined that the refurbishment of the Village Hall should go ahead. The way ahead should be a village decision and as such it is intended to hold an open meeting to discuss what has already happened , present the options open to us, and to decide what to do next.

This open meeting will be at 8.00 pm on Tuesday 1st October in the Village Hall. Please come and let us know your views and also offer your support to the committee.

There was a very disappointing turn out at the public meeting on 1st Oct which was a great shame bearing in mind the importance of the subject. Those brave souls that did attend agreed that we as a committee should try again to obtain a lottery grant however with a cheaper phased scheme (Approximately 50% of the original cost) which although in the short term will not deliver the full redevelopment does offer a way of achieving significant improvements over the next 18 mths, with the prospect of implementing the rest of the scheme at a later date.

It is liley however that there will have to be a degree of self-help in achieving what we want in the village hall. We are committed to developing the hall for the greater good of the village however we do need a good level of support form those who will benefirt from the promised improvements to the facilities.

We should be able to publish a revised scheme in the near future