England’s village halls are set to benefit from a major new renovation fund announced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on Saturday 28th May 2022 to mark Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
At the heart of rural life and communities, village halls are home to fitness classes, coffee mornings, community groups, jumble sales, art clubs and post office services – even in the most remote of locations. They often provide the only place for a community to meet and socialise locally and are vital in tackling loneliness, providing a lifeline for those who can’t travel long distances.
The new £3 million grant fund is intended to be a significant boost to rural communities with 125 village halls set to benefit, allowing vital modernisation and improvements to take place.
The Platinum Jubilee Village Hall Improvement Grant Fund will provide grant funding over 3 years (to 2025) to support capital improvement projects for village halls, such as installing Wi-Fi, extending buildings and modernising facilities.
Details on how the funding will be administered will be announced in due course by DEFRA. We’ll be providing full details of the scheme in our daily grants bulletin as soon as it becomes available.
For the full press release, which features quotes from the Plunkett Foundation, Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) and the Rural Coalition, please follow this link to the GOV.UK website.
