Villagers may go to court to save hall

A public meeting in Wilsden last night heard that the village hall management committee have instructed solicitors to contact the Council and demand that they reverse the decision to withhold the £42,000 funding.

If necessary they will press for a judicial review of the decision and are prepared to spend up to £5,000 on the legal fight by instructing a barrister.

Some 200 local residents packed into the village hall at Townfield last night to hear the first solicitor's letter - to Bradford Council chief executive Richard Penn - read out.

The letter dubbed the new point scoring system for community grant allocation "undemocratic, arbitrary, discriminative and perverse". It went on: "It resulted in a decision no reasonable local authority would have accepted. Your officers have not followed their own flawed procedure."

Martin Harrison, chairman of the village society, immediately announced that a special fundraising committee would be formed to raise money for a fighting fund to pay the legal fees. Any money left over would be used to boost village hall income and build up its reserves.

The Wilsden village gala would be resurrected this summer to drum up cash, and would take place on the cricket field.

"Fundraising depends on everyone in this hall and everyone in this village, undertaking, supporting and contributing to events, otherwise a small group of people will become demoralised and it will go pear- shaped," he added.

Councillor Simon Cooke (Con, Bingley Rural) applauded the efforts of campaigners and told the meeting: "With the turnout we have here, there's every hope for the future in keeping this hall open.''

It was entirely proper that somebody had stood up to challenge the Council decision and taken what action they could, not only for Wilsden but for people across the whole district, he said.

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