Village hall gets a makeover

Residents in Lutton in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire will soon be benefiting from a brand new refurbished hall thanks to Spire Homes, FWA West and other sponsors. The work will be completed by Benton Joinery Ltd. Before the makeover the hall was cold, lacked insulation and had no disabled toilets, amongst other problems that did not meet Health and Safety guidelines.

It was decided to tackle all the problems together, and seek sponsorship. It took just over a year to raise the funds, and the cost of refurbishment will be about £55,000. The community managed to raise £4,000 from a mixture of sponsored walks, car boot sales and cake stalls, and the rest was kindly donated from nine different companies*. With this, the village will benefit from a warm, well lit hall and the kitchen will have a cooker. The project is planned for completion in mid November.

As well as donating £10,000 to the project, Spire Homes’ contractors FWA West cleared an over grown pathway and converted it to pebbles for easy maintenance. They also built a bump over the car park to prevent the pebbles spilling onto the road. This was for their annual community day, where workers have a day off to do something good for the community.

Carolyn Walsh, Committee Treasurer for the Village Hall said; “The village hall will be safe and comfortable for people to use and we will be able to hold a number of activities that benefit the local people such as dances, keep fit activities, training and private functions, book clubs, parish meetings – the list goes on! We are so grateful to all those involved for making this possible.”

Newcomers will also benefit from the new and improved village hall as Spire Homes are also scheduled to start work in November, building eight new affordable homes for rent in the village.

* The nine sponsors are Spire Homes, East Northamptonshire Council, SWEET-UK, Maud Elkington Charitable Trust, Cory Environmental Trust, Garefield Weston Foundation, County Councillor’s Grant, Norhamptonshire Community Foundation from their Grassroots Grant Fund and Anglia Grain Services Ltd.