HUGE fundraising efforts in a small village will see a £200,000 new village hall built in the summer.

Croft-on-Tees, near Darlington, has an elderly prefabricated hall for all its events, and villagers decided three years ago to start raising cash for a purpose-built replacement.

The original hall was built in 1986, supposedly as a temporary construction.

Events, donations and grants thanks to the hard work of dedicated volunteers have seen the amount needed for phase one of the new village hall scheme raised more quickly than anyone expected.

But more money is needed for phase two of the project which will see the village hall fitted out properly and the surrounding area landscaped.

Dan Connolly, chairman of the Croft-on-Tees Community Village Hall committee, paid tribute to the hardworking volunteers who had given up so much of their time to organise a multitude of fundraising events, including walks, lectures, a Christmas pantomime, and many themed events at the village hall – including an evening with Ian Botham.

"It is testament to our community that we have got here," he said. "It has been a massive team effort by people who have put in huge amounts of time."

And he said donors had been extremely generous, with individuals giving sometimes hundreds of pounds. One donation alone exceeded £50,000.

A Sport England grant of £50,000 will be paid when construction is underway and the village hall committee also took part in a Sport England pilot crowdfunding scheme.

They had to raise £1,000 in crowdfunding which would then be matched by Sport England. £1,360 was raised in just a matter of days via the online crowdfunding site.

"We launched it on the Friday and by the end of the week we had already reached £1,000," said Mr Connolly. "We are so grateful to everyone who has contributed."

A further grant of £10,000 was secured from the National Lottery and smaller grants have also been filtering in.

Work on the new building will get underway in the summer holidays to cause as little disruption to the loyal groups that use the hall as possible.

It is hoped it will be complete by September and there are plans for a big launch event.

But Mr Connolly said: "Our focus has been on phase one and we are extremely excited that phase one is looking like it is going to be completed towards the end of the summer.

"However we are still fundraising hard and still need a significant amount of money, £50-60,000, in order to complete phase two.

The outside area will form a kind of village green area, with a good outdoor space for the community to use.

The new Croft village hall, situated behind the Croft Hotel, is expected to include a main hall area, kitchen, storage and office space, accessible toilets and veranda area. The focus is on creating a fit for purpose hall, with more modern technology and good kitchen equipment for catering purposes.

Donations are being accepted online by visiting the Crowdfunding page. To follow the progress of the project or to make a donation, visit crowdfunder.co.uk/build-a-village-hall