Letter: Poor Publicity For New Village Hall Meeting

Published on: 18 May, 2017
Updated on: 18 May, 2017

Ripley Village Hall

From John Perkins

On Thursday (May 11) the trustees of Ripley Village Hall chose to unveil their plans for a new building not, as might reasonably be expected, at the existing hall in the centre of the village, but instead at the Bowling Club, outside the village up a lane and inaccessible to anyone without a car or unwilling to risk the speeding traffic on a road with no footpath.

The event was advertised on the parish council website and on the morning of May 11 on the Ripley Grapevine, an email service available by subscription, albeit buried amongst other announcements. Some of the owners of the site, the residents of Ripley and Send Marsh, might consider the notice was less than adequate.

The proposed building is two stories high and incorporates apartments for rent. Quite how such speculative building fulfils the remit of the trustees must remain a mystery for the moment.

The chair of the trustees, Gillian Haigh-Brown, and the secretary, Suzie Powell-Cullingford were assisted by Karen Holdsworth-Cannon of Surrey Community Action in their presentation of the scheme.

Karen Holdsworth responded:

I was asked to attend in my capacity as the Community Buildings Advisor to explain the legal position around charity law and how the Village Hall is protected as an asset for the community and how it is vested at the Land Registry. This means that any proposed development will need to have the approval of the Charity Commission before proceeding. The building is an asset for the community.

Surrey Community Action, Community Buildings Advisor works with the 5,800 Community Buildings across Surrey to ensure that Community Buildings are valuable assets but they need constant care and attention to be kept up to standard and remain economically viable.

The proposed redevelopment of the Village Hall is at a feasibility stage.

The meeting was very positive and engaged the community and discussed how the potential funds could be raised.

The comments and feedback from the community were taken on board and will be fed into the feasibility study.

This will be an on-going process, with lots of discussions taking place to see if the redevelopment can potentially take place.

I hope that answers any queries or clears up any ambiguity.

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