Villagers celebrate completion of new hall

Kentford and Kennett villagers marked the completion of their long-awaited new village hall with an informal open day on Saturday.

Although the building will not officially open until next spring, the event gave local people the chance to look around and come up with ideas of how it might be used by the community.

The hall has been four years in the planning, mainly by a parish council sub-committee of Darren Watson, Diane Wallis, Simon Raffe, Andy Basham and chairman Robin Swanson.

It is next to the pavilion on the Maclaren Playing Fields in Kennett and replaces the old village hall in Kentford which fell into disrepair and was abandoned more than 12 years ago.

As well as the building itself, floodlights for the football pitch have been installed allowing the village’s youth football teams to train and play throughout the year.