Village Hall – History

Background

Comberton Village Hall was built in 2006 and first used in November of that year. The Hall was officially opened by Andrew Lansley MP in May 2007

It replaced the previous Village Hall which had served the village since 1968. This hall was a converted HORSA hut purchased by the Parish Council from the County Council after it ceased to be needed as a classroom at the Village School when the Village College opened in the early nineteen sixties.

The decision to replace this hall was prompted by the Disability Discrimination Act. The cost of upgrading the hall to meet the requirements of the Act were so excessive that it was decided to build a new hall. In addition the facilities were extremely basic and the hall was not large enough for the size of the village.

A New Village Hall Steering Committee was established in 2002 consisting of volunteers from the village, members of the Parish Council, Village Hall Trustees and ‘experts’ from the village. After many meetings a plan was arrived at and quotes of its cost of construction were obtained from three builders. Fundraising then commenced in earnest – over £400,000 was required for the construction with a further amount to equip the hall.

Fundraising to build and equip the new hall

Appeals were made to many organisations, companies and grant making charitable trusts. The successful ones were as follows:

Comberton Parish Council, Waitrose,South Cambridgeshire District Council, Age Concern, Department of Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Help the Aged , Wren (Waste Recycling), Awards for All, Donarbon (Waste Recycling), Virgin Retail, Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation, Rugby Cement, The Hedley Foundation, The Batty Charitable Trust.

A personal appeal to every household in Comberton was made and numerous fundraising events were held in the village including:

Open Gardens, Quiz nights, Coffee mornings, Lectures, a Fashion Show, Brass Band concert, Choir concerts, Orchestral concert Christmas and Easter Fayres. A donation was made by the Le Vaudreuil Twinning Association (Le Vaudreuil in Normandy has been twinned with Comberton since 1999). Two private donations from Jeffrey Archer and Francis Pemberton were made.

A low interest rate loan was taken out with the Charity Bank to complete some internal works. This has now been repaid in full. The total amount raised was almost £500,000

updated 25May2017 as requested by the Village Hall Committee