Autumn Parish Planning News: Information on how Boxford & Ashampstead parishes have been busy in West Berkshire

Parish Planning News. Autumn 2014.

by Tessa Hall, Parish Planning Community Development Worker, CCB Telephone: 07966236408 or email:  tessa.hall@ccberks.org.uk

2014 has seen a renovation at Ashampstead Village Hall whilst Boxford has a totally new hall.  Both of these projects came about through the hard work of the communities Parish Planning groups. I would like to thank and congratulate Ashampstead and Boxford planning groups for all their hard work, read more below about how both of these projects came about.
 

Ashampstead

Ashampstead Recreational Trust (ART) formed a village hall business group and raised £26,000 to refurbish their Jubilee hall which was once the village school. It was stated in Ashampstead’s Parish Plan from 2008 that ‘although the hall plays an active part in the life of the village, it has the potential to play a far more pivotal role.  However in order to achieve this potential it needs modernizing, constant maintenance and general tender loving care to bring it fully into the 21st century making it something we can be proud of and a worthy feature within the community.  Only then can we build a broader spectrum of events and activities to enhance the lives of the people who use this facility’.

This has now been achieved. The funding was a combination of grants from the Greenham Common Trust Find Me a Grant website and advice from organisations including CCB.
In addition, local fundraising brought in over £1,000 from an Elvis night, £1,400 from a Food Fair and £1,500 (and counting!) from sales of a village cookbook.

The funds raised enabled the committee to refurbish the main hall where the improvements included new lighting, installation of a PA system and repainting.

Photo of the smaller committee room, suitable for business and other meetings.

A smaller committee room, which could be used for business meetings, has a new floor and lighting, insulation, wood panelling, carpeting, new blinds and curtains as well as new chairs. The toilets have been improved and outside there is emergency lighting and new guttering. The work was completed in April 2014.

As well as use by village organisations, the committee is looking for hirers from outside the village. One room and the kitchen can be hired for £10 hour. Further details are available at www.ashampstead.com/Pages/ashampstead-village-hall.html as well as on Facebook (search for Ashampstead Village Hall) and Twitter (@AshampsteadVH).

The committee and volunteers are to be congratulated for the hard work which has gone into transforming the hall which is an excellent example of the village working together

Boxford

The opening ceremony of Boxford’s new village Hall was held on 6th September 2014. The project to build a new Village Hall started out as an action in the Parish Plan which was published in 2007.

The ceremony was started by Glenn Evans, the chairman of the Village Hall Council of Management and Gay Smith, Village Hall committee member, who helped with the cutting of the ribbon and presented a celebratory cake. The hall was opened by award winning writer Sebastian Faulks, whose family used to live in Boxford.

Mike Appleton, Parish Councillor for Boxford and Chairman of the Parish Plan was the project lead.  The project took 5 years to complete. He told me that 93% of the total cost for the planning and building of the new hall was covered by the sale of the old village hall site. 6% of the remaining funding came from Greenham Common Trust and the last 1% from the Parish Council and village hall funds.

The new hall is built to meet modern eco standards; it is fully insulated and has a ground source heat pump operating from a dual well system which provides all the heating and hot water. One of the wells also provides the potable water. It has photovoltaic panels on the roof which should cover the cost of all electricity required. The building is lit mainly by LED lighting which reduces electricity consumption. There is also a "cloud" sound absorption system which helps the acoustics of the building, softens noise and improves voice communication, so often a problem in public buildings.

The building has an internal area of 250m2 and this provides for two halls, kitchen, storage and sports changing facilities and toilets. The old hall had one hall which was used by the local pre-school. One of the main design features for the new hall is that it has two halls.  This enables the pre-school and other community activities to run in parallel, something the old hall could not do. The two halls are divided by a state of the art acoustic screen which means it is also possible to combine the two halls into one large hall if required.
Local companies were used for the planning and building of the hall and the work was completed both within the budget and building programme.

Hire charges: In the week the main hall can be hired by residents for £11 an hour and for £14 an hour by non residents. At weekends it’s £14 for residents and £18 non-residents. Please email: boxford.village.hall@gmail.com or phone: 01488 658366 for the full list of prices.