Village News

We are very excited and delighted to report that we have been awarded a generous grant from FCC Communities Foundation (@fcccommunitiesfoundation) to enable us to make further improvements to the Parish Hall. This, together with the grant we received from the National Lottery Awards for All, will mean that you should soon start to see work begin on the Hall.

On behalf of the Parish Council, the Advisory group will be working hard over the next few weeks to gather together more quotations to cover the work that FCC will be supporting and employing the best builders etc. for the project. A lot of work and late evenings have already taken place to submit the grant applications…… and now we will be holding more meetings to sort out how to proceed.

FoLPH (Friends of Launton Parish Hall) have been invaluable in the fundraising they have undertaken over the years, and continue to do so. One condition of us receiving this award is that we needed a third-party donor and FoLPH agreed to contribute this third-party donation to FCC of just over £10,000. They have also agreed to fund further improvements to the Hall. Thank you FoLPH.

We will keep all parishioners and Hall users informed of the progress we are making and given plenty of warning of when the Hall will be out of use. We hope to restrict this to a minimum and get the majority of the work done when the Hall is not in use during the summer holidays. That is our wish but of course we are in the hands of the builders and have to do the work when they are available.

We will continue to post upcoming fundraising events. Please support us by attending these events.

Some exciting news that we can share with you is that we have recently been awarded a grant of £20,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund’s “Awards for All”.  This grant is specifically to install solar panels on the roof.  We are just getting some quotes for this but rest assured that the panels will be on the roof in the coming months.  This will improve our energy rating and save us money on our energy bills.  It is something that is on our long list of improvements for our ‘Rescue our Hall’ project.  We should hear in the next month or so if we have been awarded any other grants which will help with the essential internal work needed.  Insulation and heating are first on the long list of updates as well as refurbishing the toilet area.

As you will have noticed we have had some security lights installed on the side wall of the Hall, which is a great improvement and will help people to navigate the uneven ground in the evenings.  We will also be installing a light at the back of the Hall – probably over the back door which should help to light up the car park area.  At present the lights are on all the time but this is being fixed so hopefully they will only be on from dusk to dawn.

We have received some very positive comments on these and also on the planters at the front of the Hall which are now coming into bloom.  Hopefully other improvements will be seen soon with a replacement door being fitted to the side of the Hall as you enter into the kitchen.  Some minor updates to the kitchen are is also in the pipeline.

The Parish Council are grateful to the Advisory Working Group and Grants Group who are continuing to work hard, meeting regularly and applying for all the grants for which we are eligible.  Friends of Launton Parish Hall (FoLPH) are also continuing to fundraise to help fund this project, and are applying for grant funding in their own right.