Pumping new warmth into the heart of village life
The Gloucestershire village of Awre sits in a bend in the river Severn, and at its heart is the village hall. Built in the mid-1800s as the local school, it still houses the bell that called pupils in to class. As the village itself is quite dispersed, the hall – now a registered charity – once again plays a crucial role as a focus for community activities. Trustee Ian Cowan explains:
‘When the local pub closed, the village committee decided to open the hall every other Friday for beer and crisps for anyone who wanted to come along. This proved popular and soon expanded into two-course meals with wine and cider as well as beer.’ The managing committee quickly recognised the potential of this shared space, and the building now hosts everything from weddings to Scottish dancing, African drumming to ping pong to private hire – including weekend workshops with a local kinesiologist.
Despite its success, the venue struggled with longstanding problems of damp, cold and high heating costs. The committee knew there were steps they could take to improve conditions and save money – the problem was they just couldn’t afford them.
In 2021 the hall committee worked with Severn Wye to see if Target 2030 funding could be the answer. Funding schemes can come with daunting paperwork, but their Severn Wye Business Energy Advisor gave the advice and support the hall needed to secure grant funding for three efficiency measures. The first was to improve the building fabric to make subsequent improvements as effective as possible; its structure and character weren’t appropriate for wall insulation, so this meant insulating the roof space. Once this was in place an air source heat pump was install, and the lights were upgraded to LEDs. All this was achieved through the hall’s own investment of £5,375, topped up with Target 2030 funding of £2,303.
Inevitably the installations were disruptive, but the results have been well worth it. With warmth and comfort guaranteed, people are inclined to linger and socialise more. ‘We now have a hall which is warm and cosy,’ he enthuses, ‘and visitors haven’t found the heat pump noisy at all’ – a critical factor for the meditation group that comes from nearby Cinderford.
Cowan estimates the hall had been using around 5,000kwh of energy a year and the improvements have seen this drop dramatically: depending on the use of the hall and the outside temperature, to between 1,500 and 2,000 kwh.
There have been knock-on benefits too. The improved heating has resolved the building’s damp problem which was making one wall constantly mouldy and damaging curtains beyond repair, so overall maintenance costs have also been reduced. As for energy use, over the lifetime of the three measures the hall will save more than £25,000.
