Witney News - Council will give £44,000 to help improve village

Council will give £44,000 to help improve village

West Oxfordshire District Council’s Cabinet Members have recommended that grants totalling £44,000 are given to help four village halls.

The Cabinet has agreed to recommend that funding is given to the following village halls that have applied for help under the Council’s Village and Community Halls Minor Schemes Grants programme for 2008/9:

Asthall Leigh Memorial Hall: £12,500 towards replacing the hall’s roof and rebuilding its toilets with disabled facilities. A new doorway will also be built to give access from the hall to its garden. The total cost of this work will be over £49,000.

Filkins Village Hall: £12,500 towards the first of a three-phase renovation project to modernise the hall. The funding will help refurbish the bar and kitchen area and also go towards electrical rewiring and installation of baby changing facilities. In total, the first phase will cost just over £33,000.

Fifield Parish Hall: £12,000 to help towards fully refurbishing the hall. Work, which will cost almost £63,000 in total, will include replacing and repairing the hall’s floors, walls, kitchen, toilet and roof.

Freeland Village Hall: £7,000 to help repair the hall roof and replace its flooring. The total cost is just over £22,500.

Cllr Hilary Biles, Cabinet Member for Leisure, Tourism and Health at West Oxfordshire District Council, said: “Village halls are often at the centre of communities in West Oxfordshire and it is important that they are maintained and kept in good working order. This funding will help towards essential work that will assist these village halls to continue providing this service to local residents and the Council is pleased to help.”

For more information about funding and grants run by the Council, visit www.westoxon.gov.uk/grants or call 01993 861000.