Ten-year battle over community hall edges nearer to resolution

THE long-running saga over the future of a Beverley community hall should enter its final chapter this week when councillors decide whether to approve a 1.4m overhaul.

The trustees of Beverley War Memorial Hall are seeking planning permission to alter and extend the site of the landmark building in Lairgate, a project more than 10 years in the making.

Proposals to knock down the old building and build a new arts centre, approved last year, were derailed by the credit crisis. The latest scheme includes a new entrance and foyer with a cafe bar, refurbished hall space and three meeting rooms.

Secretary David Wilkinson said: “It is the only plan we’ve got that’s likely to get us the money we need.

“We have gone for a simple design based on the original plan.

“It has been a compromise but we couldn’t get the funding we needed and we think this is the only option we can go with, with the amount of money we can raise.”

They already have pledges of 700,000 from East Riding Council, 500,000 from the town council and have raised another 100,000.

The building will effectively be turned round internally, with the new entrance facing the Treasure House. It will be accessed from Champney Road and from the car park at the back of the Treasure House.

Planners from East Riding Council are backing the plans, which go before the planning committee on Thursday, saying the development will provide improved cultural facilities for the town.

The plans will remove the 1950s extension and see the construction of a pitched roof and an amphitheatre, a series of informal steps/seating in Champney Gardens, where people can sit and eat a sandwich on a summer’s day.

The stage will be at the Lairgate end and will be equipped with retractable wings and curtains, which can be folded away to open up the dance floor. It will have retractable seating for three hundred people, up from the 249 it is currently licensed for.

Director of Salt Architects, Gary Hornsby, who has been involved with the scheme since 1998, said: “What we have managed to do is get as much of the flexibility as we have always had into the space even with a reduced budget. You can have everything there from theatre production to line-dancing. It’s a community facility at the end of the day. We’re confident we have ticked all the boxes for the brief.”

The hall is still taking ad hoc bookings, but regular customers have had to look for alternative venues as the building will close entirely at the end of March.

Building works should take around 10 months with the hall being reopened at the beginning of next year.

Kate Gray, an East Riding councillor, who lives in Beverley, urged people to support the new plans.

She said: “Let’s get behind it – let’s not try and derail it this time. It is a very much needed facility for the town and people who go in and use it would say the same thing.”

Planners state: “The replacement of the currently in-filled windows and the construction of a pitched roof as well as the removal of the 1950s extension will improve the appearance of the building and the conservation area.”

The original hall – a memorial to the men and women of Beverley who died in the Second World War – was opened on the site of St John’s Church, Lairgate after 13 years in the planning. Even then, the committee had problems raising funds.

Two separate bids for Lottery funding for a 3m scheme to convert the present building for wider community use were turned down in 2007.

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