THE future of Cowling Village Hall will have to be decided soon as issues of health and safety come to the fore.

The state of the hall has long been a thorn in the side of the committee which for many years has been trying to decide what its future could be.

At one time ambitious plans included buying Royd Mill and building a brand new community centre on the site.

But time ran out as the community centre committee tried to scrape the money together to buy it and the district council conditionally approved an application from a third party to demolish the old mill and build 16 houses.

Time has ticked away slowly since then and although the community centre committee has scaled down its search for new premises, its treasurer Canon Richard Price remains hopeful a hall of some type will continue.

"Certainly the Royd Mill site was ideal in its location. Cowling is a difficult village as far as ideal places to house a community centre go.

"I think it is important to have a focal point for villagers and all the different organisations, but the decision on the future of the present hall lies with the parish council," he said.

Recently parish council chairman John Alderson requested a list of the work needed to bring the hall up to standard to qualify for a public entertainments licence. It was not good news.

A large amount of structural work as well as health and safety modifications have to be carried out. The work could cost tens of thousands of pounds and includes emergency lighting, safety glazing, smoke detectors, fire resistant doors and glazing, handrails, maintenance work on boiler and additional exits.

In addition the safety inspection suggested the walls to the storage room were unsafe and a structural survey should be obtained. It was suggested the room was not used until then.

The report from L Holmes and G Bowyer stated: "Our feelings are that the building is so unsafe that we have no alternative but to inform the appropriate authorities involved in building safety. There is an obvious lack of good housekeeping in that the building has been left to fall into such a state of disrepair."

Coun Alderson said the time had come to make a decision on the future of the hall.

"All we seem to be doing is waiting to see what happens. We need to decide whether we can justify spending so much money on the building," he said.

Meanwhile the council is to look at securing the services of a structural engineer to make a report on the safety of the hall while it looks into the potential cost of the work needed.

The council will then have to decide whether to abandon the building altogether and find alternative accommodation for the existing users such as playgroups, the library, the parish council, the youth club and Cowling Companions, or continue looking for a suitable area of land to build on subject to grant aid.

The village hall as it stands has an estimated value of around £45,000.