Community Buildings Big Lottery Fund

Next meeting is on Monday 23rd October at 7.30pm at the Village Hall

What is it about?

This is a fund launched by the Big Lottery which will give communities the chance to improve their quality of life by funding buildings that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. The programme will pay for creating and improving facilities that offer a wide range of services and activities to a broad range of local people.

Rempstone Parish Council has agreed to submit a bid to the programme for funding to replace the village hall which needs updating urgently in order that it can remain as a focus for village activities into the future.

The Parish Council is supporting a dedicated project team to focus on achieving a successful bid submission. The project team so far has carried out a resident's survey asking you what you would like to see the hall used for and what events you would support. It has done some considerable work with Rushcliffe Borough Council to gain their advice and support over redevelopment and updating of the village hall and is working hard to get a bid submitted to the Big Lottery Fund by the end of November 2006.

The project team meets regularly at the village hall to progress research, planning and bid submissions. It consists of volunteers and all meetings are open to the public.

What are we asking for?

The Parish Council will be submitting a bid for funding in the region of £250,000. This will go a long way to redeveloping the existing hall and improving facilities. If we stay within this figure we will not be required to provide match funding at this stage.

The bidding process is two stages. All first stage bids have to be submitted by the 30th April 2007. After this date the funding is closed. We intend to submit our bit by the end of November 2006 and hopefully will receive an invitation to proceed to the second stage of bidding five months later by April 2007. However if we do not succeed we are also looking at other funding opportunities.

Big Lottery wants to fund buildings that will promote community interaction and self-help. It hopes that these buildings will continue to serve communities in years to come while minimising their negative effects on the environment. Community Buildings is mainly a capital-funding programme to cover the cost of building our project, not running it.

Successful applicants will show that their building will be accessible to as many people as possible and that the local community will be strongly involved in using and managing the building.

The Big Lottery will be looking at us to achieve these outcomes:

broadening access to, and more use of, existing services,
creating a greater number and wider range of new services,
improving opportunities for the community to access a wide range of learning,
improving the skills, knowledge and capacity to respond to community needs,
increasing participation by the community in decision-making processes that affect the community,
improving community relationships and networks,
improving financial viability of community premises,
premises that use less energy, pollute less, create less waste and have a reduced contribution to climate change.

If you would like more information about the community buildings fund and the work of the Rempstone Village Hall project team, please contact Amanda Craig on 01509 881524.