Feasibility Studies

The Village Halls Consortium has been commissioned by Durham Rural Community Council to carry out two pieces of identical work in Weardale and East Durham.

The work consists of carrying out feasibility studies to identify the levels of interest community buildings in these two areas have in participating in a community buildings network. This could be a membership network like The Village Halls Consortium or a more informal network where groups meet regularly to dicuss common issues and joint working.

Community buildings in these areas have been contacted and face to face meetings are taking place where the committee work with TVHC to go through a community building needs survey to establish the background to the organisation managing the building, to find out information about constitutional matters, meetings, finance, licences etc. And to discuss the possibility of establishing networks in these areas - what this would entail and the potential benefits and drawbacks of this.

The work will be completed by the end of June 2010 in these two areas with the production of a report by TVHC which will outline the findings from the meetings that have taken place and recommendations as to whether networks in these areas are viable options.

This work is being funded by East Durham Leader for the East Durham Community Buildings and by North Pennines Dales Leader for the Weardale Community Buildings. The funding is being made available through the Rural Development Programme for England, which is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union, and is managed by One NorthEast in the North East region.