A COMMUNITY hall could soon be reimagined with the help of some bright ideas from the local community.

The committee at Calstock Village Hall is looking to village residents for ideas on how to revamp the hall after being successful in securing funding of around £9,000 from the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The 30-year-old village hall sits at the heart of the community and the committee wishes to revamp the venue to make it more user-friendly for its user groups such as the preschool, to lower its carbon footprint, provide space for new training possibilities and to give it greater capacity to increase income to secure the hall for the next 30 years.

The funding that has been secured has enabled the committee to employ a local architect who will be creating the new design for the hall.

At the weekend, Calstock architect, Claire Bissell, alongside members of the hall committee held a community consultation morning, on Saturday June 10, in the hall to gather thoughts from the community via a questionnaire.

Matt Taylor, administrator at the hall, said: ‘Today (June 10) we’re asking the community if they have ideas about how they would like to see their village hall change. The questionnaire is asking people questions such as how they use the hall now, what’s good about the hall and what could be better.

‘We have employed an architect, who at the end of the process, will come up with a design to make the hall work better and to become more economically independent going forward and to, hopefully, create an environment that will be better for all its users.

‘The hall is so valuable to the community. There are so few grants out there for village halls that this is a once-in-a-generation chance to make this hall available for the next generation. It’s very exciting to have got the grant.’

Matt explained that the funding received will fund the design and following this, the next stage will be using the design as the basis for applying for further grant applications to fund the work.

Claire is looking forward to the prospect of redesigning the village hall and said: ‘It’s such a well-used village hall but there are a wide range of groups, so it’s about trying to make it work for all the different user groups which will be challenging.

‘We are in an amazing location and it’s making sure the hall connects with the space and it would be lovely to create a connection with the village green.

‘We have a vibrant community and we need a hall that reflects that. So, today we’re trying to get people to say what their priorities would be.

‘We’re starting the conversation.

‘We’d like to hear from people to in the local community to see if there are things we haven’t thought about.

‘We want to make the village hall work for today and years to come.’

The committee working alongside Claire is aiming to get the plan finished by late November/early December this year.

A link to the questionnaire can be found on the Calstock Hall Facebook Page. The survey is open for another two weeks.