Earlier this year Alderley Edge Parish Council formed a Festival Hall Management Committee to oversee the work of Hall Manager Ashley Comiskey-Dawson and the work needed to improve facilities at the building.
The committee, who meet on a regular basis, provided an update to the full Parish Council regarding the income generated from the hall and the works carried out in recent months.
Up until the end of November, the income generated from renting out the hall in 2012 stood at £38,613.00 - compared with £29,805.00 for the same period last year.
However, expenditure due to required works and running costs totalled £65,594 - so the hall operated at a loss of £26,981 for the first 11 months of 2012.
Work which has been undertaken to improve the facilities includes: repainting the kitchen and bar area, replacing old style lightbulbs with energy saving lightbulbs, resealing and varnishing the dance floor and replacing old bar fixtures and fittings with new ones as well as installing a new carpet and lighting.
Junk which had accumulated at the hall over a period of years has also been removed, emergency lighting has been renewed or replaced, the drainage system has been cleaned and some minor plumbing works carried out.
As a result of these improvements income from the hall has increased. In the first two weeks of December income from the hall was £5000, £3000 of which came from bar takings.
Councillors were also please to report that over £9000 has been raised for charity from events held at the hall this year.
Cllr Melanie Connor said "Next year (2013) is filling up nicely. One of the great things that has happened is the number of charities who've held events and will come back again.
"The balance for us is making money from events and remembering that it is a community building. The next two years will show that this is the case."
Alderley Edge Parish Council took over management of the Festival Hall in 2009 following a review, carried out by consultants on behalf of Macclesfield Borough Council in 2005, concluded that the hall was underused, losing money and out of touch with the modern community.
With the Festival Hall under threat from being demolished and sold to developers for affordable housing, the Parish Councillors fought to save it. The hall was built for the annual Alderley Edge Festival in the 1930's, as a community facility.
With the Medical Centre project progressing, the Parish Council is looking to refurbish and upgrade the Festival Hall to provide a modern and flexible venue which can be used by the community and hired out to a wider market - thus reducing the burden on local taxpayers.
Last year the Parish Council invited interested parties to tender for the contract to refurbish the Festival Hall, plans for which included a new entrance to the side of the existing building, so the main entrance will be off Heyes Lane rather than Talbot Road.
Speaking back in April, Cllr Williams told me "We have a lump sum of £300,000 from CEC for refurbishing the hall, we have £100,000 from the precept and we will approach the Institute Trust for a grant so the refurbishment won't cost the Alderley Edge tax payer very much.
"The hall costs us about £20,000 a year to run and we want to cover that by renting it out for commercial events and we want to start showing films and staging plays."
