AMBITIOUS GOALS MAKE FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS
The Story So Far…
The need for a new village hall in Cherhill has been recognised for over a decade as, although the current hall has served the village well, it has many shortcomings.
It was the offer of a land donation in 2014 which suddenly made a new hall possible and a project team was formed to move things forward. Extensive investigations determined that the land being offered was the only suitable site for a new hall. An architectural competition was won by world famous Make Architects and their design evolved through feedback from the village into an attractive, sustainable building in sympathy with its setting but offering the village modern facilities for years to come.
It was decided to use a Community Right to Build Order (CRtBO) to get approval to build and a series of surveys and studies were commissioned by the project team as part of this process – the first time it has been used in Wiltshire although many similar projects have been approved throughout the country. The design proposal, together with all the surveys and studies, went through an exhaustive public consultation process and then an independent inspector was appointed by Wiltshire Council to review the proposal and ensure that it was compliant with all the relevant legislation and planning regulations. The inspector approved the proposal without a single amendment.
The final stage of the CRtBO process was a referendum which was held in March 2019. The referendum was conducted by Wiltshire Council using the same protocols as for a local or parliamentary election and all residents aged 18 and over of Cherhill Ward, as defined in Wiltshire Council’s Area Designation Notice, were eligible to vote. The question asked in the referendum was: “Do you want the development in the community right to build order for Cherhill to have planning permission?” : 191 people voted ‘Yes’ and 106 voted ‘No’, or 64% of those who voted were in favour of the proposal.
As a result of the positive result in the referendum the CRtBO was ‘made’ and planning permission for the new hall was granted. Fundraising is now underway. The freehold of the current village hall and the land on which it stands is held by Cherhill Village Hall Charitable Incorporated Organisation and the proceeds of selling the site will be used to help finance the new hall.
The Design
The Proposal
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Community Right to Build Order (CRTBO)
Learn more about the CRTBO process.
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The Proposal
Have a look at the detailed proposal for the new hall.
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Evidence Base
Explore all of the documents that form the evidence base.
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Illustrations
View the illustrations created to support the proposal
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Examiner's Final Report
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Wiltshire Council's Decision Statement
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Final Decision Notice
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Document Archive
FAQs
Why does Cherhill need a new Village Hall?
The ambition of replacing Cherhill’s Village Hall is not a new one. It has been around for at least 10 years and was a topic that was addressed when the Cherhill and Yatesbury Parish Plan was published in 2010. You can read the Plan by clicking HERE. Go to pages 19 and 20 and you will see the finding that:
“For a new community hall, 79% of people would use it frequently or occasionally.”
….and the population is growing
The current Village Hall is very busy and its schedule is pretty much full. This means that it isn’t possible to encourage new start-up groups and existing users are unable to expand their activities as their popularity increases – an unhealthy and frustrating situation for any community. Even the Parish Council are often unable to secure a slot for their meetings. To see for yourself how packed the current hall’s schedule is just CLICK HERE
As for parking…. a picture is worth a thousand words….
The current hall is a single large room which means that only one event or user-group can be accommodated at any one time. The arrangement of lighting controls and the single entrance/exit prevents sub-division of the space to allow multiple users. The small side room by the stage can, on occasions, be used in addition to the main hall but it is small and severely limited by the amount of space which is taken up by storage. There is no dedicated storage in the hall which means that the available space is always reduced by the need to accommodate furniture and other equipment. The majority of the current Hall’s user groups struggle with the lack of storage space
Why put the new hall in Park Lane?
The Ainslie family have very generously offered to donate a piece of land on condition that it is used exclusively as the site for a new Village Hall. The piece of land in question is at the junction of Park Lane and the A4. There are definite advantages to using this site for a new village hall:
Land gifted for community use
Adjacent to A4
Best road access
Safest for pedestrian access
Easiest to find
Couldn’t it be located on another site ?
There isn’t another site available; we have searched and the full story is HERE.
Won’t a village hall on the site lead to houses being built as well?
The Wiltshire Core Strategy provides up-to-date strategic planning policy for Wiltshire. As Cherhill is designated a ‘small village’ it is expected that only a limited amount of development would come forward as infill sites; infill is described in the Core Strategy as the filling of a small gap within the village that is only large enough for not more than a few dwellings, generally only one dwelling. There’s more detail HERE.
How can we have a hall but not housing?
In the Wiltshire Core Strategy community buildings are treated differently to other categories.
Isn’t the village in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty?
Cherhill is within the North Wessex Downs area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and so is most of the county, plus a good part of Berkshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire. The AONB management is not opposed in principle to the Project – they are very keen to support thriving communities and see the need for up to date facilities to help do that. We will continue to work with the AONB team as the Project progresses.
How will the new hall be paid for?
During the design and planning process the project received grants from the local Area Board, the Community Rights Programme and existing Village Hall reserves.
We now have planning permission and will shortly take ownership of the required land in Park Lane. This puts us in a favourable position to raise the considerable funds needed to construct the new hall. Some of the total will rightly be raised within our community, but the large majority will need to be raised from external sources. There are many sources of grants for community projects, including the National Lottery fund and some initial approaches were made. However during the CoVid crisis most of these sources justifiably diverted their grants towards communities most directly affected. We expect to re-double our fund raising efforts in the near future.