Work begins at last on eco-friendly hall

Mar 14 2008 by Ben Guy, The Journal

AFTER more than two years and a major legal battle, work on a £500,000 eco-friendly village hall could be about to start again.

Residents in Stonehaugh, north of Hexham, Northumberland, first started fundraising for the much-needed village hall in 1999, not realising that it would take almost 10 years before the hall was near completion.

Led by the village hall committee and supported by a number of grants, the 35-home village raised the £350,000 needed to start work on the hall by early 2006.

But a legal dispute with the building team hired to turn the plans into reality has meant progress has been painfully slow since then.

Phil Biggs is chairman of the village hall committee and said that with the resolution of the legal wrangle close to a solution, villagers were starting to get behind the project again.

He said: “It has been a bit of a pain for the community. Everybody was really interested in the site and there was lots of community support but that has dwindled because it seemed we were stuck with a white elephant.

“Work progressed well throughout 2006, but by the end of the year there were a few disputes and things ground to a halt. Nothing at all was done last year, it just stood as a shell.”

A further £150,000 to £200,000 is needed to complete the hall, and the committee is in the process of securing that cash through various grants.

And now that the dispute with the original builders has been resolved, the committee is ready to start looking for a new firm to finish the job.

To make sure that the project receives all the available funding, work has to be completed within a tight timescale.

Mr Biggs said: “It has to be finished by September, because that is the time limit on the grant money. I would like to think we could be close to completion by the end of the summer.”

The plan, once the building is finished, is that it is almost entirely self-sustaining.

It has two wind turbines attached to the roof as well as a giant solar panel, a huge pit has been dug behind the building for a tank to recycle rain water, and it will be heated by ground-source heating.

The hall will be home to a number of groups in the village, by the social club and could also be used by walkers trekking on the nearby Pennine Way.

Bruce Griffin, of law firm Dickinson Dees, represents Sustainable Design Construction Ltd, the original builders hired for the project.

He said: “It was a construction-related dispute regarding valuation that has now been resolved by experts. It is good news that the project is going to be finished.”