10. Village Hall Committee
Village Hall Committee 1
According
to the survey in the first year of the village society, the most needed
amenity was some sort of community centre. Second was a youth club.
The youth club was formed very early in part of the Mechanics Institute
and would continue to need premises, whether there or in some other
building.
Marcus
Catling chaired the meeting of all the society’s committees on Sept
30th 1971. A meeting of various existing clubs and organisations in the
village had been held, to assess likely support and potential users. Of
the 20 groups invited, 8 had attended and 4 sent apologies. Rather
discouragingly, all had emphasised their own difficulties in fund
raising although they offered passive support for the idea of a village
hall. Members at the WVS meeting thought that the existence of
facilities would in itself generate usage, perhaps of groups that had
never formed for want of a suitable meeting place.
Existing facilities in Wilsden were examined:
Royd House
Royd
House offered a reading room, a committee room and kitchen facilities.
It would need to be considerably extended to make a village hall. It was
well positioned, as close to a central area as there was for this long,
narrow village. However it was owned and managed by Bingley UDC, which
was likely to complicate getting grants which could be available to
voluntary bodies.
Wilsden First School
The facilities were already over stretched for non-school activities.
Mechanics Institute
An
architect’s survey suggested at least £6000 would be needed just to
waterproof the walls and roof, with further major work to comply with
modern regulations. To provide adequate parking, it might be necessary
to purchase and demolish other property. In favour of the building were
its historical interest and village memories of its fairly recent social
use. Gerald Tyler was investigating the trustee situation and it was
possible that ownership could pass to new trustees appointed from the
society.
A new hall
With a capacity of 240 for dancing or 160 seated, the predicted cost would be £20,000.
There
was a lot of discussion about the kind of use envisaged, running costs
and who should run it and a feeling that they did not have enough
information to decide on such a big commitment.
The
group appointed to carry out a feasibility study reported back to the
general committee in November and to a meeting of all committees in
December. The general committee voted 11 to 3 in favour of their
recommendations and would make £300 available for a publicity campaign,
to be repaid as soon as possible out of funds raised. The December
meeting supported the proposal that a village hall should be built on a
site in Firth Lane. Dr Wheelock had already obtained agreement in
principle from Bingley Council that this land would be allocated for a
community centre. After consultation with Yorkshire Rural Communities
Council, the recommended accommodation was to be;
- hall with space for 350 dancing,
- committee/multi purpose room
- kitchen
- storage
- cloakroom facilities
- there might be built in facilities for a bar but the hall should not be licensed.
There
was the possibility that a purpose built youth club would be built in
the village. It was suggested that this could share the same site and
may be combined in one building.