ORGANISERS are over the moon after work to revamp a village’s tired hall is finally completed after being held up for months by the pandemic.

Extensive refurbishments and extensions to the Ridgewell Village Hall have now been completed.

Work was originally scheduled to end in the autumn of 2020 but, due to the pandemic, the hall was finally handed back to the village hall management committee on April 24.

Work on the hall has been in the works since 2014 and has been led by the Hall Improvement Project team, comprising a small group of volunteers.

Led by project director Nick Rouse, the team worked hard to raise the necessary funds of £624,000 to carry out the project.

The major funding was secured via the Big Lottery Reaching Community Buildings Fund which provided a grant of £400,000.

While retaining the original structure of the main hall built in the 1950s, the new hall bears no resemblance to its predecessor.

The team say the building has been brought in to the 21st century with up-to-date facilities like Wi-Fi, hearing loops, CCTV and a security system.

Other changes have also been made to the building’s main hall, with a new room also being added so two events can take place at the same time. The car park has also been extended and now accommodates up to 20 vehicles.

Nick said: “It has been a long slog involving thousands of volunteer hours to get us to this point and we certainly hadn’t anticipated a global pandemic as one of our risk factors.

“I am enormously proud of the modern and sustainable building we have delivered and hope that this will be at the centre of the community for many years to come.

“We would like to give our sincere thanks to all of our funders and local residents for their support.”

The team added more than £50,000 of new play equipment has also been installed at the site and is proving very popular with families from the village and surrounding area.