Ashwater

Parish Hall

Ashwater Parish Hall Front

The present Hall was originally purchased from the Independent Order of Rechabites (a temperance society) in 1929 for use as a Parish Hall and it subsequently became a registered Charity known as "The Parish Hall and Institute". A management committee has run the Hall for the benefit of the Parish of Ashwater ever since that time. Details of the Charity can be found at the Charity Commission website.

The Management Committee meets on a monthly basis and produces minutes of each meeting. The meetings consider all matters relating to the Hall, including both its day to day running and its future. The Hall has, over the years, been run and maintained by the Management Committee to the best of its ability but the ravages of time and constant changes in legislation have made it all but impossible to continue its existence.

The Hall is well used by the Parish and the surrounding community for a variety of purposes and by a number of users some of which are listed below:

Anybody wishing to know about the conditions of hire or book the hall please contact the Treasurer via halltreasurer@ashwaterparish.org.uk

The Secretary can be contacted at hallsecretary@ashwaterparish.org.uk

Ashwater Parish Hall Side

It is essential that the Hall continues to exist and perform a vital Parish function by remaining a focal point in the Parish. The Committee therefore decided, in the late nineties, to look at solutions to the existing and emerging difficulties it was encountering in the keeping the Hall viable. It was decided that there were five options that should be considered, taking into account the state of the building and anticipated new legislation.

All options were fully explored, but with the state of the building and impending new legislation governing this type of building the only viable solution was Option 5.

Over the last few years the Committee has consulted with the Parishioners to ascertain their needs and has managed to raise a large sum of money towards the new Hall project through donations and special events. These efforts were assisted by the great kindness of one Parishioner who donated a site for the new building and this enabled the project to move forward. By the summer of 2006 the Committee were in the position of:

  1. Having acquired a site,
  2. Having raised enough money to commission a preliminary design brief for the new Hall building from an architect and
  3. Having obtained the necessary planning permission from the local authority.
All that now needs to be done now is to raise the finance necessary to actually build the new Hall.

The Committee is currently pursuing funds for this purpose but in the meantime the existing Parish Hall is being maintained in a functional condition and continues to be available for use by the Parish and local community.

An application for funding from the Big Lottery Fund Community Buildings Programme has now been submitted. This was done in mid October to meet the relevant six month deadline for applications.

Posting the application for Lottery Funding

HALL UPDATE

During 1998/9 Jack Moon made a very generous offer to provide a piece of land in his field opposite the Church for a new Hall to be built. This was accepted by the Hall Committee and the necessary work put in hand to transfer the site to the Hall ownership.

This proved to be a very tortuous road, nothing to do with Jack but the fact that a covenant on the land had to be lifted by the Church Commissioners. Believe it or not the legal work took nearly 5 years to complete and incurred considerable Solicitor costs. The covenant was lifted around March 2004 and the transfer of land was finally completed on 14th May 2004. Part of the deal with Jack was to supply water to the field and another property, this proved like all other items not to be as simple as first thought but this was eventually completed including a mains supply for the new Hall. The costs associated with this part of the project, the securing of the land, amounted to £7357.50. This included £3762.04 for the Solicitor fees and £3595.46 for the water provision.

During this time Architects were appointed to design a hall, consultation with all in the Parish took place and then a Planning application was made to build the Hall on the proposed site. This was not without its difficulties but finally the Planning application was granted. In addition to the new Hall application one was submitted for planning to build a house on the old Hall site once the new hall was built. Torridge District Council insisted on a S106 Agreement before planning permission was granted in respect of this. It took nearly a year to get this document agreed and Solicitors costs mounted. The spend on the new Hall so far is £10070.52. This includes Architect fees of £7195.71, planning fees of £1080 and Solicitor fees of £176.25. In addition to this spend the S106 cost £1618.56.
In total then £17428.02 has been spent on the project resulting in considerable progress having been made on the project.

During these intervening years fund raising has been taking place on a very regular basis. We have also received £5000 from the Awards for All Scheme to help with the project plan submission. It has been a tremendous effort by all to raise the money to bring the project to this stage, but the new Hall still has to be built and there was no alternative but to seek additional funding from outside the community.

During the past 9 months we have succeeded in getting through the Stage One Application Process of The Big Lottery Fund, which has awarded a grant of up to £25000 to progress the project and prepare a Stage Two Application. It is hoped that this will be submitted by the end of November this year. We will then have to wait possibly until March/April 2008 to find out whether or not the BLF will fund the project. In addition funding grants are being sought from the Community Council of Devon, Torridge District Council and other potential funders. We also have the sale value of the Old Hall Site, which when realised, will add to the funds and the Parish Council has approved a grant of £5000 towards the project.

The first signs of work will take place in the near future with a ground survey being carried out as part of the Stage Two bid process, which involves the writing of a Business Plan and a Capital Project Delivery Plan, which are also integral to the bid process.

This is an update on the situation but the committee does need extra help, the provision of a new hall is their number one issue, but as they say many hands make light work. We have a particular need of someone who can keep and record the minutes of our meetings, but if you have any skills to offer or would like any more information on the project please come along to the next meeting on 5th September 2007. NO OFFERS WILL BE REJECTED.

Website designed by Anthony Williams and Henriette North.
Comments and Submissions to webmaster@ashwaterparish.org.uk
Last modified: Monday November 06, 2006