A GRANT from the National Lottery community fund has boosted a programme of improvements to a 73-year-old village hall at Leeming.

The £23,310 award will help towards alterations, new equipment and roofing maintenance costs at the hall, which serves Leeming Village, Londonderry, Exelby and the surrounding areas.

The improvement scheme, costing about £25,500, will involve improving access for the disabled and making alterations to toilets to allow them to be used by people in wheelchairs, in line with legislation introduced nine years ago.

The award was announced as Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh, whose constituency includes Leeming, warned that while village halls were becoming increasingly vital to rural life funding could be under threat from cuts.

Kathy Lowrie, chairman of Leeming village hall committee, said that as well as alterations to meet the needs of the disabled, it was intended to replace windows and external doors, rewire the building and install additional electrical sockets, surface the car park and replace roof slates.

The hall will be decorated and furnished with new tables and extra chairs.

In addition to the lottery contribution the parish council has offered cash and money has also been raised by the hall committee.

It was hoped the work would be carried out over the summer holiday.

Ms McIntosh said: "The hall was built in 1930 but nothing major has been done on it other than work to keep it going.

"It is looking a bit dated and a little sad now and needs a bit of work done on it to bring it up to date.

"We will have a lovely building which will look nice from outside and we hope it will attract more people to regular groups as well as encouraging more people to hire it for private functions.

"We could consider an evening class for a computer course. We had an inquiry about it but it was thought that it could overload the existing wiring.

"A disabled person can get into the hall but there are no facilities for them inside at present. The emergency fire exit has a drop of about a foot but this will be eliminated when we surface the car park."

The hall is used by the under-fives group, the Footloose dance class, the WI, parish council and organisers of a monthly domino drive.

There should be a youth club on Fridays but the leader moved to Northallerton and a replacement is needed.

Ms McIntosh said: "With the accelerating demise of post offices, our village halls are becoming an increasingly vital resource in the Vale of York yet they are facing a series of new burdens such as from fire, access and health and safety regulations. Many built from the 1930s onwards also need extensive renovation."