Village Hall History
Five Ashes Village Hall – a brief history.
In December 1972, the Five Ashes Memorial Playing Field Committee invited residents to a meeting in the Women’s Institute hall to approve the plans of the proposed new village hall on its present-day site attached to what was then the cricket Pavilion. Although approved by the residents the report to the committee in February 1974 reported that they were not acceptable to the Architects who advised the Sussex Rural Community Council (who had been approached to help fund the build costs). Eventually the obstacles were overcome to enable a building to be constructed albeit without any financial help from any local government bodies.
Built by voluntary effort, the first development of the village hall was largely completed prior to the official opening in September 1976 after the original appeal to raise funds was launched in November 1975. The raising of funds to build the hall was the result of much effort on the part of the committee of the day led by Roy Eastwood (the first chairman of the hall committee). Roy was responsible for many money-making activities to pay for the hall and probably most noteworthy were the horse shows which he ran on fields owned by himself.
As part of fundraising activity, the Woman’s Institute based in their own building in the village, on what is now the corner of the entrance to Westfield Close agreed to sell their building for development and contribute the proceeds of the sale to the funds to finance the building of the new hall. Initially the Charity Commission Commissioners would not allow the proceeds to be applied to the cost of the new village hall until the village hall was held on a suitable charitable trust basis and the WI had secured terms for the use of the new hall. The sum involved was £6524.10. Eventually an acceptable deal was struck with the WI and an offer made to the Trustees through the then secretary (Mrs Colebrooke) The outcome of the offer was that the WI would have the use of the Village Hall including the kitchen, cloakroom and toilets on the first Tuesday of each month during the hours of 11.00 to 18.00 and the use of the pavilion as a committee room on the last Tuesday of each month between 14.00 and 17.00 for an initial period of 5 years. At the end of the 5 year period the terms would be reviewed.
By 2003 the hall was beginning to look past its best and deemed to be beyond economic repair and a new initiative was launched to raise funds to build a completely new hall on the playing field. The new hall would be an increase in the overall footprint to accommodate perceived future demand from user groups as well as the inevitable demand for extra storage space. Part of the plan was to demolish the existing hall once the new one had been built to make extra car parking space.
Funding for the new hall was secured from many different sources on a promissory basis.
All sponsors were advised that should the project not start any money donated would be returned. A substantial amount of funding was hoped for from the National Lottery Board, which, whilst in its infancy, had supported a number of new builds for village halls. Unfortunately, Five Ashes was not to find favour with the Lottery Board and the significant hard work put in by the committee came to nothing. Clearly the hall was still in need of some form of renovation or the asset would be lost completely. The generosity of many of the sponsors (who did not want their money back) meant that there
was a residue of money available to do some improvement to the Northern end of the hall and this took the form of new double glazed UPVC units to replace all the rotten wood panelling in 2009.
Grant success from the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) in 2010 made funds available for the installation of a grid-based ceiling with insulation, hot air heating system and recessed lighting in the northern hall.
A matched funding grant from Wealden in 2012 provided an opportunity to install a drainage scheme in the playing field. This has enabled an extended period of time for use whereas previously even during the summer months, a heavy rain storm would prevent use for a number of days afterwards and use during the Winter months almost impossible.
The next major change in the life of the hall came in 2013 when a Big Lottery application was successful and provided a grant of £455,401 to renovate the existing building. A successful bid was also made to Wealden to complement the package.
This windfall enabled the complete upgrading of the existing areas, the removal of the pavilion and a second hall to be built on the Southern side and an extension to the existing car park.
Also, included within the package was an upgrade to the play area for the preschool.
The building was officially opened by Jayne Torvill in March 2015
Ongoing development saw a grant from the LUND fund to develop a sensory garden in 2017. This was followed up in 2018 with an award to plant a number of indigenous trees on the Northern boundary with signage to explain their value to wildlife. The local school and others use this learning walk to increase their knowledge of their natural environment.
The village hall is now home to a number of organisations who meet on a regular basis and enjoy the benefits of some forward-thinking people back in 1972 who recognised that a community needs to have a focal point to gather, learn new skills, compete in a chosen discipline or meet for a cup of tea and a chat.
Part 2.
Having seen the successful completion of the major overhaul and refit of the building, it came as no surprise that the demand for the use of it became a victim with its own success.
Given the nature of the activities which were now taking place at the Village Hall it soon became apparent that we were becoming a net importer of users onto the site and car parking was becoming a real issue.
The lack of space was compounded by the building of the Hospice in the Weald on the site of the Village Church, which had previously provided daytime parking for various individuals who now graduated to the village hall. The inevitable increase in the number of cars within families in the immediate area to the Village Hall with minimal parking, again put further pressures on the existing parking facility. Users of the hall began to complain about the fact that whilst the facilities were first class clearly and they were somewhat frustrated by the fact that they could not park at the hall to
use it.
In 2017 outline plans were drawn up for the provision of parking spaces for up to 20 extra cars. The proposal was to have herringbone parking off the trackway which ran east west along the side of the field. Discussions were entered into with southern water who are the owners of the trackway to resolve an issue of right of perpetual access over their section of track to access the car park. In short, the representatives were totally intransigent to our request.
An alternative site was proposed which involved the building up of the area adjacent to the existing car park which eventually found favour with the planners and we were given approval in 2018 to build.
Costings were sought from various potential contractors. It became quite clear that this would have to be a phased approach to the construction given the likely cost involved.
It was decided to progress the project in manageable stages in line with any surplus cash which may be available, to carry out chunks of work and essentially to make a start before having to re-apply for planning permission.
Discussions with the local earth moving contractor proved to be both useful and very successful. He was able to help us considerably with the first phase of the operation in building up the ground level to match the existing car park level. Exceptionally wet weather proved to be a bonus when he started as far as being able to accept lorry loads of heavy clay soil when many of the local tips were closed due to the inclement weather. All the drivers had to do on arrival at the car park was to reverse up to the edge of the proposed new car park and tip up. With easy access and no need for any washing of wheels before they could go back on the road, we benefited from a premium on the price they paid per load to deliver the soil into us. The income generated from this activity paid for the spreading and compaction of the soil. First part completed in November 2019.
Over the course of the next two years the outline demarcation was established with kerbstones and a hard-core base was compacted down ready for a topcoat of tarmac. The final laying of the tarmac was achieved in 2022 with the help of a significant donation from the parish council. Low level walk over lighting in the central isle was completed in 2023.
Scrutiny of operating costs of the hall has always been a priority with the committee and when the supply contract for electricity was up for renewal in April 2024 the various quotations which came back for the supply showed a significant increase compared with the last three years at fixed rate of almost 80% on each of the supply tariffs.
The opportunity to offset some of the use of bought in electricity was explored and a survey was commissioned to identify how a solar system could potentially offset some of the increasing cost of the bought in supplies.
Available finance would ultimately determine how large a solar system might be installed, given that the roof would be able to support a considerable number of solar panels, which would not be the limiting factor. On the basis of the amount of power consumed in a year it was decided to try to achieve a 50% generation from the roof panels as a target. The installation also had to incorporate an energy diverter to heat water when excess power was available once
the battery storage was at capacity.
The final specification saw 26 panels on the roof generating a potential output of 10.4kW, charging a battery with capacity to store 8.6kW and a 3.6 kW diverter. Any surplus energy not used within the building (usually in the summer months) was exported back to the grid. The price paid for exported units was a useful income stream and in the first year of operation had generated about £2000 in line with the original proposal.
The original proposal had suggested a payback period of 6 years at the time of installation. During the winter months the battery is charged during the night at the cheapest rate and then discharged during the day so reducing the daytime costs of running the hall. The combination of saving on bought in supply and income generation will shorten this payback period, particularly as the figures suggested were conservative and the days seem to have longer periods of sunshine where generation continues until late into the evening.
The maximum recorded generation in 2025 was 31kW on a single day.