APPENDIX 1: Wereham Village Hall Grant Application - Project for which grant is required.

Charity Overview

The purpose of the Wereham Village Hall Charity is to maintain a community building with the objective of improving lives for the residents of Wereham and surrounding villages.

The activities provided by the Wereham Village Hall Management Committee (WVHMC), with the support of the Friends of Wereham Village Hall (FoWVH) are:

 A weekly evening Bingo, monthly Car Boot & Café and monthly Pop up Café;  Various community and fundraising events throughout the year: quiz nights, yard sale, family bingos, Summer Fayre, Christmas bazaar, Spring sale, Christmas carols, kids and adults painting sessions for submission to the village calendar.

Our current user groups are:

 Weekly - Short Mat Bowls Club, Parent & Toddler group;  Monthly - WVHMC meetings, FoWVH meetings, Wereham Parish Council meetings, fundraising events;  Quarterly - Messy Church, Parochial Church Council meetings, Neighbourhood Watch;  The hall is also used as the Borough Council Polling Station.

Existing building overview

 A structural report in 2009 concluded that the WW1 wooden building was beyond economic repair, recommending restricting use to 24mths, with quarterly re- inspections.  In response to reports and recommendation from the structural quarterly re- inspections, we have restricted use of the hall: o No activities or music that may cause vibration; o Closure if winds are in excess of 40mph; o Closure if there is snow load on the roof.

Project Overview

We are now six years further on and after much work and consultation, we have established that as well as maintaining the current provision of a community space and regular activities, there is a need for further support within our parish and beyond.

Project Evidencing

Since 2013, the Village Hall Project Team have reviewed regional and national statistics and undertaken the following local consultations to clarify the needs of our community (660 residents) and the 8 surrounding villages (, , , Boughton, Oxborough, Whittington, and ), totalling approximately 3000 people (based on OCSI stats 2013).

1. July 2013 - Wereham 275 household survey; 2. 2014 various dates - Consulted 200 visitors from the surrounding area at events and user groups; 3. April 2014 – Two open consultations at the Active Roadshow and WVHMC AGM; 105 attendees; 4. May 2014 - Focus group for children aged 11-17; 5. May 2014 - Older persons focus group; 6. June 2015 – Older persons focus group; 7. June 2015 – New skills focus group; 8. July 2015 – Consulted with 8 village halls and Parish Councils (West Dereham, Fincham, Barton Bendish, Boughton, Oxborough, Whittington, Wretton and Stoke Ferry).

Community Needs

In response to these consultations over the last 2 years, we have evidenced the following needs:  Young people need opportunities to socialise;  Older people need opportunities to socialise;  All ages need opportunities for physical activities;  Adults need opportunities to learn new skills.

Project Objectives

In response to these needs, we have 5 lead volunteers in place who will be responsible for delivering the following activities:  Social group for young people aged 11-17;  Social group for older people;  Physical activities for all ages;  New Skills for adults with opportunities to progression to formal qualifications.  Village cinema

To meet these objectives, we need to build a new, bigger, brick, eco-friendly, financially self- sustaining community hub with disabled facilities. We have instructed a Passivhaus designer for the purpose of designing a building that has reduced running costs by 80% of a similar standard building. This will ensure that we have a building that is economically accessible for all.

The hall will also be available for private hire and other activities required by the community. There will be no restrictions on who can use/access services.

Funding

We have requested £650,000 from the BIG Lottery Fund (BLF). We have succeeded in our Stage 1 and Stage 2 applications and have been awarded £28,000 of development funding to help us achieve our Stage 3 application which includes design of the new building and the application for planning approval.

We have a robust funding strategy (as stated by the Lottery’s Investment Officer) in place to finance the shortfall between the anticipated funding from the BLF and the full costs of the project and the provision of a grant from the Parish Council would create an important part of this. In addition to the direct impact this funding would have, a Parish Council grant would also bring a number of other benefits:

 It will signify to other funders that we have the full support of the parish. An example of this is WREN, a not-for-profit business that helps benefit the lives of people who live close to landfill sites by awarding grants for community, biodiversity and heritage projects. Our conversations with them have identified that they could be a potential source of up to £50,000 towards the project, however they do expect there to be some level of financial support from the Parish Council in place.  The Lottery have requested that we secure approximately £75,000 of funding by submission of our Stage 3 application on 18th March. The presence of an additional £30,000 alongside our own fundraising and other guaranteed grants to date makes us a less ‘risky’ project in their eyes.  The same applies to other funders; the more finance we have in place alongside evidence of parish support, the more confident new funders will be that ours is a project that is required and that can be delivered and that they can feel confident in adding their support to.

In support of our request for a Parish Council grant, during the August 2013 Wereham household survey, we identified that 93% of households wanted a new community hub and that 49% of households currently used the Village Hall. Of the 51% of households who currently did not use the Village Hall, a high proportion of the reasons given would be resolved with a new hall delivering the projects objectives discussed above (Figure 1). We can definitely say that this investment would have far reaching benefits for a large number of Wereham residents.

Additionally, we asked whether parishioners would be prepared to pay an increased parish precept towards the Village Hall. Of the 203 households who responded, 60% said yes. Of those who responded yes, approximately two thirds were prepared to pay an additional £5 per year and one third an additional £10 per year.