As previously reported on alderleyedge.com, the Parish Council has up to now been unable to complete all the work it wanted to do on the Festival Hall due to lack of funds. However that is about to change because the Festival Hall has been awarded a grant of £47,146 from funding body WREN to enable them to further improve the facilities.
The Parish Council will use the money, awarded by WREN's FCC Community Action Fund, to create additional meeting rooms and toilets. By providing extra meeting space at The Festival Hall the Parish Council will provide local community groups with a place to meet within the village for exhibitions, discussions, presentations and speaker meetings.
It will also provide valuable facilities for the annual Alderley Edge Music, Speech and Drama Festival.
Chairman of the Music Festival, Keith Lowe said "Last year we had to use the kitchen in the Festival Hall as our organisers' room, which was less than ideal. This grant is especially welcome, and we very much hope that the new rooms will be ready for the 2017 Festival in May, as this will allow us to operate in a much more professional way."
Catherine Jones, Manager at the Festival Hall, is also enthusiastic about the benefits: "One of the things we struggle with is storage space in the Hall. This grant means that we can not just create the new rooms, but also free up space elsewhere in the Hall to use for vital storage of chairs and equipment."
The application to WREN was put together by Councillor Christine Munro, along with other members of the Friends of the Festival Hall - a group comprising of both Councillors and local residents.
Parish Council Chairman Geoff Hall thanked the group for their work saying "No one in the group is paid for the work they do, and we are very grateful both to them and to WREN for making these funds available to us. We have ambitious plans to develop the Festival Hall further over the next 12 months. If you haven't already visited it, then please do. You will be made very welcome."
WREN is a not-for-profit business that awards grants for community, biodiversity and heritage projects from funds donated by FCC Environment through the Landfill Communities Fund.
Photo: Exterior and Geoff Hall inside the Festival Hall.
Comments
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Having seen the potential of the rooms upstairs when we had the village show this year the money will really help to make the hall more useful to all the village for various events.
The kitchen did need a rework so great news!