Heritage project Launch

On Friday 27th February 2015 Steve Baber and the Heritage Project Group hosted an evening to officially launch the Heritage Project.

The evening started with an informal chat and refreshments followed by gave a formal presentation by Steve (see slideshow below) of the Heritage Project its reason d’etre, current aims and ongoing activities.

The main points put forward in the presentation were:

Over the last couple of years a significant amount of effort has gone into planning and funding a major refurbishment of the hall. The planned activities are to remove the existing floor and replace with a new sprung wooden floor with underfloor heating, remove the suspended ceiling to expose the architecturally interesting roof beams, add additional insulation between the rafters, upgrade the electrics and lighting, and have the roof re-thatched.

Current funding for the project stands at £130,050 comprising £21,00 raised by our own events and donations and the remainder from 10 different grant sources. The larger grant issuing bodies that have contributed to the project are acknowledged in the footer of each page on this web site. Project costs are predicted to be around £145,000 which is a £15,000 increase on the initial costs due to the fact we are now considering using an Air Source Heat Pump for the heating instead of the original plan for an Oil Fired boiler.

After the presentation everyone tucked into a cheese and salad buffet, with more refreshments, and general discussion with members of the Heritage project Group. A follow on Q&A session was short with no major objections put forward to the proposed plans and general acceptance of the unavoidable disruption to hall activities while the work was ongoing. The upgrade work is currently planned for June-August 2015 using the school summer break to minimise the impact on the community.

Overall people seemed interested and pleased with the proposed upgrade.