Eight Ash Green Village Hall to be demolished ahead of revamp

Eight Ash Green Village Hall, in Spring Lane, is being given £481,495 from the National Lottery’s Reaching Communities Grant after applying for it in September 2023.

Over the last 18 months, the hall’s group of four trustees - Dean Nokes, Alan Bilby, Pamela Savill, Judy Alden - and a dedicated team of volunteers have been filling out the necessary information needed for the final stages of the application.

They found out the final the application had been successful at the end of April.

Old - Eight Ash Green Village Hall (Image: Eight Ash Green Village Hall) The grant will be used to demolish the current hall so a new, modern community hall can be built.

The funds are being used alongside the hall’s self-raised £120,000 and developer S106 funding of £190,000, totalling an overall budget of £791,495 for the transformation.

Mr Nokes, 54, is a parish councillor for Eight Ash Green and has been a trustee of the hall since 2022 and said: “We were extremely excited.

“I think we felt immensely proud to achieve it, very few can get to the end and get their grants.

“It was a second-hand war shelter, it is a really old, dilapidated building and has had a lot of good community use over the years.

"To know we got the grant, we were over the moon.”

Inside - Eight Ash Green Village Hall in 2023 (Image: Eight Ash Green Village Hall) Despite its condition, the village hall is still used for children’s dance classes, singing groups, yoga groups, social groups, and for parish council meetings.

Mr Nokes says although it’s a “celebration point for the village” as it has “lived a very long and worn life”, some people maybe “don’t use the hall” in its current condition.

It is full of “wear and tear” once demolished, a new building will be placed further back on the land to utilise unused space and make more room for parking.

The building itself will feature a large hall, a separate meeting room, toilets, disabled access toilets, a modern kitchen, a small upstairs area which can be used by groups, and storage space in the roof.

It will be “fully accessible” with a lift added have secure cycle storage, and it will use solar power and harvest rainwater to make an “eco-friendly, low cost to run building”.

“It will make a huge difference," Mr Nokes said.

“It’s currently not the most inviting place - it is going to enable people to have a modern building we can use.”

Planning application has already been approved in the past for works on the site to take place, but the trustees are still awaiting to hear when the lottery funding will be issued.

Demolition works are intended to start this summer.

A ‘buy-a-brick campaign’ where your name will be written on a brick that will be used in the creation of the new hall is currently running.

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