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Vibrant village halls2024-02-01T15:18:14+00:00

Vibrant village halls

England’s 10,000+ village halls are at the heart of rural community life. Through a network of skilled advisers, we offer a nationwide advice and information service for the volunteers who manage these important community buildings.

Many village halls were built after the First World War. Set up in a concerted national effort to develop social and educational provision in rural areas, they have adapted over the years to provide a space for many activities from exercises classes, playgroups and weddings to hosting vital services such as post offices, doctors’ surgeries and shops. Quite often, they are the only place for people to meet and socialise locally. They also sustain an estimated 50,000 livelihoods connected with use of the venue.

These buildings are almost entirely managed by volunteers. Based on our last national survey of village halls, we estimate 80,000 people regularly volunteer their time to keep these important community assets alive. But this is no easy task. Running a hall requires good governance, funding and an ability to negotiate red tape.

Through a network of skilled advisers, ACRE coordinates a nationwide information and advice service for village halls. Advisers are based in every rural county of England and combine their specialist knowledge of running community buildings with local knowledge.

Village hall advisers help with a wide range of queries, from holding AGMs to recruiting volunteers, applying for funding and building relationships with councils. Contact details for advisers can be found in the ACRE Member Directory.

Nationally, ACRE researches and develops information and delivers training to enable village halls advisers to provide a top-notch service, as well as campaigning to raise an awareness of the contribution that halls make to rural communities, and the support needed to keep them going. This includes work with the Charity Commission to ensure model documents are up to date.

ACRE also administers the £700,000 Defra Rural Community Buildings Loan Fund which helps community groups with renovation, refurbishment and building projects. And in 20 counties, our members use our quality standards scheme for village halls – Hallmark – which rewards and recognises good practice.

We are encouraging all Government departments to recognise the multiple economic, social and environmental benefits of village halls and similar rural community buildings.  Specifically, we would like policy makers to:

  • Include them in initiatives and plans so that all halls are able to reach carbon neutral targets
  • Tackle the burden of irrecoverable VAT and maintain other tax reliefs and exemptions that are an important contribution to the financial sustainability of halls
  • Consider all options possible for providing capital funding to improve and maintain England’s ageing stock of halls

ACRE Network Case Study – Carrshield Village Hall, Northumberland

Find out how the rural community of Carrshield in Northumberland turned an old mine building into a warm, welcoming and inclusive village hall

Village Hall Sponsors

ACRE’s village halls and information service is made possible by a mix of grant funding and corporate sponsorship.

We are grateful to the following organisations for their generous support of the information and advice service.

We welcome new partners to work with, especially those who are able to offer specialist goods and services to village hall committees. For more information, please email d.clarke@acre.org.uk

Publications and resources

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ACRE
The Quadrangle,
Woodstock,
Oxfordshire,
OX20 1LH,
United Kingdom

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