Sadly, the annual capital grants programme that DCA has administered for Dorset County Council is being discontinued from the end of this financial year as part of the £48.5m of necessary savings the county have to make in the light of the public funding deficit. It is likely that West Dorset may follow, we have not heard anything from North Dorset.
The capital grants programme has been a vital part of funding for hall repairs and refurbishment and is going to be seriously missed. With the government also cancelling the Grassroots funding scheme the funding hole gets bigger.
We had high hopes for the new Reaching Communities Programme for Community Buildings that is being launched but, as the small print is being made available, it is obvious that this is not going to be of much help to Dorset's halls.
Apart from those hall's within 10k of a landfill site where Landfill Tax funding is available there are now virtually no sources of grants specifically for village halls which will increase pressure on the already over subscribed trust funds who, in turn, are getting virtually no return on their investments to be able to fund as much as they would wish.
We need to take time to reflect on all this but I would urge halls to strongly review their current position with regard to pending hall refurbishment programmes and their reserve levels and consider whether hiring charges are at the correct levels to generate sufficient income to fund these future improvements.
The focus for the Village Halls Network in coming year is quite clear. How can we find ways to increase income and reduce expenditure with the minimum impact on the service the halls provide. With the absence of readily available specialist funding schemes the hall of the future is going to have to be self-sufficient.