Return to Agenda

ITEM EX11

EXECUTIVE - 30 SEPTEMBER 2003

VILLAGE HALL/COMMUNITY CENTRE GRANTS 2003/2004

Report by Head of Cultural Services

1. This report recommends the allocation of the money remaining in the County Council’s 2003/04 grant fund for the improvement of village halls and community centres. The grant scheme is administered in conjunction with the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council (ORCC), who have advised on the proposed allocations.

Applications dealt with in June

2. On 10 June 2003 the Executive considered sixteen applications. From these the Executive confirmed one grant provisionally approved in October 2002; agreed twelve other grants and deferred three applications for consideration later in the year.

Sum Available for Allocation in September

3. The total budget available for grants for 2003/04 is £54,203, of which £42,525 was allocated by the Executive in June. The remaining balance is £11,678.

Applications outstanding

4. Of the three deferred applications one project has not made sufficient progress with obtaining estimates and other funding in order to be considered. Another has still not gone out to tender in order to clarify actual building costs, so it is not yet clear whether there is a funding shortfall.
5. The village hall committee planning the third deferred scheme - for the improvement and extension of Sunningwell Village Hall – are requesting their application to be re-considered. Notes and supporting documents about this scheme are in the Members’ Resource Centre and a brief outline is given below.

Sunningwell Village Hall

6. This is a project, costing £403,500, to extend and refurbish the hall, which is nearly 100 years old. There is need to improve the toilets and other ancillary facilities to meet modern standards and to increase the size and flexibility of the meeting space to allow for more than one activity to take place at once. The hall is already well-used and there is felt to be scope for the generation of new activities and services. This project aims to secure the financial viability of the hall for the future by improving its potential for full use.
7. The village hall committee propose to meet the cost as follows:

	£
Parish Council	10,000	(agreed)
District Council	25,000	(agreed)
Hall Committee	35,000	(63% in hand)
Community Fund	292,900	(second application to be made shortly)
County Council	5,000
Other	35,600

8. The hall committee feel it is important to get County Council support before approaching the Community Fund again, as the Fund turned down their previous application on the grounds that there was still a considerable shortfall in the funding package. The Committee have taken all the steps that they can to remedy this in order to re-submit.

ORCC Recommendations

9. ORCC’s recommendations are set out in the schedule attached at Annex 1 (download as .doc file), which also shows the sums approved in June. The recommendations take account of the fact that the grant allocations agreed by the Executive in June were in many cases less than the sums requested, in order to conserve some funds for allocation when deferred schemes were reviewed in the autumn. ORCC recommends that grants awarded to Great Milton Pavilion, Harpsden Hall, Holton Village Hall and Milcombe Village Hall are increased, so that they can ease funding pressures on the hall committees concerned. ORCC also recommend that a grant of £4,678 is awarded to Sunningwell Village Hall.
10. The ORCC recommendations are made having contacted all sixteen applicants to review their current position and, where applicable, to discuss with them whether they need top-up funding. None of the four schemes recommended for top-up funding have started.

Financial Implications

11. The ORCC recommendations would allocate the total sum remaining of £11,678.

RECOMMENDATION

12. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to approve:

1. a grant of £4,678 to Sunningwell Village Hall, subject to its receiving Community Fund grant approval by June 2004;
2. additional grants to schemes already approved, as follows:

RICHARD MUNRO
Head of Cultural Services

Background papers: Village Hall Grant Applications

Contact Officer: Richard Munro, Head of Cultural Services (01865 810191)

September 2003

Return to TOP