£1.7m community hall approved for village

The brand new hall in the centre of Great Glen would provide improved facilities for meetings, sport, stage events and local groups.

The building would also be a new home for the village’s doctors surgery.

The new hall would be on the same site as the old Victorian village hall and adjacent youth club building, both of which would be demolished.

The scheme was approved by district council planners on Tuesday night.

Ward councillor James Hallam said the plan would result in “a state-of-the-art, purpose built building, which the village is desperate to have”.

Great Glen parish council chairman Bill Glasper added the old village hall was increasingly difficult to maintain, while the youth centre was “a blot on the landscape”.

One villager spoke out against the scheme at the meeting, saying it was a very expensive way of replacing facilities that already existed in Great Glen.

But Cllr Grahame Spendlove-Mason told the committee: “Current community facilities (in the village) are a disgrace and embarrassing in their current state”.

He said 300 new houses being built in Great Glen made the need for new facilities even more urgent.

Cllr Sindy Modha said the proposal was “forward thinking” and needed in an area with a growing population.