MINUTES OF HULLAVINGTON VILLAGE HALL COMMITTEE MEETING
PRESENT: Dave Hunt, Bob Fenner, John Greenwood, Julian Greenman, Vic Rawlins, Peter Parry-Williams, Liz Parry-Williams, Joan Shaw, Jebbie Hewitt, Paul Hadley, John Metters, Brenda Saunders, Fraser Haffenden, Anne Durrant.
Apologies: There were none
The chairman thanked those that participated in the presentation evening on 28th October. The outcome of the vote held was that the majority voted for the modular building, but new complications have arisen since then.
The New Hall Project Group Leader, Bob, had four questions to put to the committee:
1. Are the costings in column 1 of the New Hall Budget 2 Options dated 28/10/04 robust enough to be presented to the PC meeting on 10/11 for the purpose of applying for a Public Works loan?
2. Are we sufficiently confident in moving ahead to apply for a loan before we have a new lease in our hands?
3. Are we sufficiently confident to press the ‘go’ button before we have planning permission?
4. Are we confident enough to proceed with the modular option suggested without first looking at other modular possibilities?
The lease – John Metters explained the latest findings of the PCC. While the PCC and the Bristol Diocese are in favour, in principle, of renewing the lease, the Bristol Diocese Board of Finance need to have all schemes approved by the Charity Commission. The Church is a charity and therefore if they are involved in business other than ecclesiastical the Charity Commission needs to give approval to the scheme. John suggested that we could still apply for a loan and if the lease application is not successful then we would not draw on the loan. Bob pointed out that, in this case, the precept would have been set for the following year and villagers would be paying extra with no hall. John estimates that the cost for the lease application would be around £2,000, a cost which we have not budgeted for. John has no real feel as to the outcome of the application. He has been informed that the application would probably take months rather than years. If a lease is granted it would be for 35 years. The Church has to show that it made regular and occasional use of the hall – past booking sheets prove this – and that it will do so in the future. The Hullavington and Sherston Benefices are due to merge in the near future which will probably mean that a large meeting space will be needed other than the Church.
Peter suggested that, as we are required by the lease to provide a hall for the village and we still have 16 years left on the present lease, we could put up a modular building on the site which could, in theory, be moved if the renewed lease application was unsuccessful. John pointed out that at the end of the lease there is a query as to who would own the building.
Costings – Bob has estimated many of the costings and feels that they are too crude to be submitted to the PC. The specification still needs to be finalized before final costs are known e.g. what level of noise reduction is needed for the acoustic curtain/screen – the quality of the curtain will determine the cost. Will a good curtain/screen block off the noise all the way up to the ceiling, and what about the space above the ceiling? We need to have the specification finalised before putting it out to tender as any changes later on will incur extra costs. John M suggested that we need to have an independent audit on the specification.
When 3 tenders are submitted who would choose which one was best – the PC or Hall Committee?
Planning permission – We have good indications that we will be successful with obtaining planning permission although there may well be qualifiers which could affect the budget.
What building? – We will ask that Terrapin and Securracom tender for the business as they have already done a lot of work for us. Mike Gossage has put forward a company that make timber framed ‘volumetric’ buildings that are more flexible than the modular buildings already considered. He has asked Frameworks to quote for a building using his floor plan, in which the main hall and small hall are separated and the hall height is 4.2m. Peter thought that Terrapin may be able to provide a building using Mike and Jenny’s plans.
Bob felt that his concerns about the 4 issues raised had not really been answered and he was not confident enough that we were ready to submit for a loan through the PC this year.
Brenda pointed out that the main business for tonight’s meeting was to vote on what building we were going to move ahead with, taking into consideration the views of the villagers at the meeting on Thursday. Anne pointed out that the vote at the meeting was in favour of a modular building which could be moved forwards now, but that if a modular design was also delayed by another year then the vote may well have been different.
Paul proposed that the modular option be accepted on condition that it could be moved forwards now. If that was not possible then the committee would have to reconsider the choice of building. This proposal was seconded by Julian. 11 members voted for this proposal with 2 abstentions and none against.
Bob will present a paper and an outline budget at the PC meeting on November 11th. He will draw up a list of jobs that need to be done by the December PC meeting. Tasks will need to be delegated if there is any chance of meeting the deadline. Bob would like a tighter focused group of around 8-9 people to meet weekly to move the work forward.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday 9th November at 8pm in the Church.
The meeting closed at 8.50pm.