A VILLAGE has been awarded almost half-a-million pounds to build a community hall after a 30-year campaign.

The application to the Big Lottery Fund, submitted by the residents of Foxholes, focused on the lack of community facilities in the village, which has just 300 residents.

With no pub, shop or a regular bus service, many of the Foxholes residents have said that they would like a place to hold activities and meetings, especially to prevent older residents from feeling isolated.

David Mobbs, who has lived in the village for the past two years and has been heavily involved in the campaign, said everyone was delighted to receive funding.

He said: “Other residents have told me they have been trying for 30 years to get a new village hall and have tried various different avenues. Everyone is absolutely ecstatic about it. My neighbour has lived here for 40 years and she was so excited by the news.

“It is amazing that a village of this size has achieved a grant of half-a-million pounds, it is incredibly exciting for everyone.”

Before officially being awarded £499,569 worth of Lottery funding from the Reaching Communities programme, the residents had to go through the three-stage application process.

After submitting the initial application two years ago, they then had to say why they needed the funding before showing how they could manage the project and if they had the land for the proposed community hall.

David said: “We have no community facilities to develop or maintain the community, so that was one of our key points.

“We did a lot of surveys to see what people wanted and what they would use the community hall for, from mother and toddler clubs to coffee mornings for people to meet up, to indoor bowling and Zumba.”

David said the hall will also be used by the surrounding villages, and mobile units for breast screening and blood transfusions will also be able to make use of the hall.

The next step in the project will see the old village hall go up for auction, so that the remaining £80,000 can be raised for the project.

If the hall is sold next month, then building is expected to start in August with a completion date of about May next year.