Fundraising and grants totalling £60,000 (€71,497), including £16,000 (€19,065) from Lafarge Aggregates & Concrete UK, has paid for modular staging, state-of-the-art lighting, sound equipment and fully kitted-out catering facilities at the site in Sturton-le-Steeple.
Now the hall is a popular location for conferences, dinner dances and training events, as well as aerobics classes and mum and toddler groups.
A three-year fund-raising drive by the hall’s management committee, which included the donation from Lafarge, through the Landfill Communities Fund, has also led to the facility’s roof being repaired and the size of the main hall increased by a fifth.
Dave Langmead, a volunteer 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.
“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.”
An official opening ceremony is scheduled for a date to be fixed in 2012, but, in the meantime, villagers are said to be relishing their new facility.
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.”
