Families in a north Nottinghamshire village are enjoying a
bigger, brighter, bolder community centre thanks to £60,000
worth of improvements.
Fundraising and grants, including £16,000 from Lafarge
Aggregates & Concrete UK, has seen the village hall at
Sturton-le-Steeple transformed into a modern events venue.
New modular staging, state-of-the-art lighting and sound
equipment and fully kitted-out catering facilities mean the hall is
now a favoured location for conferences, dinner/dances and training
events as well as the more humble aerobics classes and mum and
toddler groups.
Dave Langmead, one of the volunteers on the hall's management
committee, said:
"The hall has always been very well used but it was beginning to
show its age and was not really providing the sort of modern
facility needed in the area.
"We wanted to really blitz the place and transform it into an
amenity which could be used by outside businesses and groups for
conferences, galas and many other events.
"The thinking behind this was to bring in valuable funds which
would then enable us to keep costs down for local people who wanted
to use the hall and its facilities."
Over the last three years the management committee have
spearheaded fundraising and garnered donations and grants from
organisations and businesses such as Lafarge, which gave its money
through the Landfill Communities Fund.
The investment enabled the committee to completely redo the
interior of the hall, repair the roof, upgrade all kinds of
equipment and increase the size of the main hall by a fifth.
An official opening ceremony is scheduled for next year but in
the meantime villagers are relishing their new facility.
David added:
"We are immensely grateful to Lafarge for their generous
donation which enabled us to completely remodel the inside of the
hall, providing a modern amenity of which we can all be proud."
David Atkinson, senior planning and estates manager at Lafarge
said:
"We are pleased our grant has been able to make such a
difference to the village hall, providing a fantastic new venue for
local people.
"Supporting our local communities is a massive priority for
Lafarge and we were delighted to be able to help the
Sturton-le-Steeple management committee with this endeavour."