Community Hall
As you might be aware, there is an opportunity to provide a community hall for the parish.
Westhampnett does already have access to a hall, of course at the March School in Claypit Lane. But it has been found that this hall does have limitations for community use. The school’s hall is not available during school time, has limited kitchen facilities, very poor acoustics and next to no storage. The possibility of altering the school hall to make good these deficiencies has been considered but the fundamental problems of a) unavailability in school hours and b) any improvements would involve extending the School Hall and increasing the school’s footprint to an unacceptable level in relation to the total area of the school’s grounds.
It has been proposed that whilst the school hall is ideal for many uses by the community such as sports, dances and similar large functions the parish would be best served by having a complementary facility within the bounds of the Westhampnett. What is proposed is a meeting hall that would be able to sit approximately 50 people at tables with a properly appointed kitchen and toilet facilities.
The community hall would be used for the meetings of the various groups that currently use the school hall and would provide the location for much wider use by the community such as mother and toddler coffee mornings, pilates classes, exhibitions etc. Oving and Boxgrove have recently built halls and have found that rapidly the community has found new ways of using it. Whilst Westhampnett is smaller than either of these villages it has to be remembered that the population of Westhampnett is about to double with the development of the Claypit site and the Apollo Garage site.
Possible locations for a community hall within the parish have been considered. The school has been discounted because of the already limited amount of space available. The other possibilities were the land to the west of the entrance to St. Peter’s church and some land opposite the School in Claypit Lane. The Parish Council was advised by the planning authority that the only place they would consider for such a structure would be in Claypit Lane, north of Ken Franklin’s house. A meeting with Mr. Nigel Draffin, agent to the Goodwood Estate, was held and Mr. Draffin agreed to raise this matter with the Goodwood board that subsequently agreed to lease the land to the Parish Council.
The RJCA Architects were appointed and the draft plans presented at the public consultation which took place prior to the Parish Council meeting on 13th October 2008. The comments made were taken on board and the plans amended. At the January meeting of the Parish Council, the Chairman reported that there would be a delay in submitting the planning application due to outstanding paperwork relating to the abandoned idea of creating a pond on the piece of land earmarked for the community hall. The Parish Council is currently waiting for the paperwork to be completed before submitting a planning application.
In part, what has prompted this proposed project has been the window of opportunity afforded by the availability of considerable funding. The developers of the Claypit Lane site were required to make available approximately £98,000 for community use. A community hall has been deemed to be an appropriate project for receiving this funding which has now been received by Chichester District Council.
Before any realistic project to build a community hall could move forward other funding would have to be found. We are advised that a prerequisite for applying for the various grants available for this sort of project is that the hall should have full planning permission and have full costings.
This page was last modified on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:01:44 PM