'Unaffordable' village hall handed back to duke

Malcolm Clarke of the Albury History Society said the closure of the village hall will be 'very upsetting' for the entire community

Community groups say they could be torn apart after the parish council announced it is getting rid of its village hall, as it can no longer afford to run it.

Albury Parish Council, in Surrey, said it could no longer afford to run the hall, which it rents from Northumberland Estates, a company acting on behalf of the Duke of Northumberland.

The council said it could no longer afford to subsidise the hall's growing loss because "in short, we would have run out of money".

Northumberland Estates said: "We regret the recent announcement that it is set to close at the end of the year", adding it remained "committed to working with the community" to keep the hall open.

The council said the annual cost of running the hall had ranged from £4,000 to £11,000 in the past three years and was expected to exceed £6,000 in 2026.

Albury Parish Council receives around £50,000 a year in taxpayer funding, with about £30,000 spent on operating costs.

It said spending £6,000 of the remaining budget on the hall was not viable.

The council said the number of people booking the hall failed to recover to pre-pandemic levels

The council said its reserves are forecast to reach the minimum recommended level of about £26,000 this year.

Malcolm Clarke, who runs the Albury History Society - one of the groups that regularly uses the hall - said closing it would mean losing the village's main community asset.

He told BBC Radio Surrey: "From the point of the locals, a lot of people I think will just give up their activities because if they can't walk to it, I think a lot of things will just finish.

"It's a very sad and upsetting situation. It's our one common community asset, maybe we need to pay more for using it. We need to get the subsidy down to a reasonable level."

The parish council is due to hold a meeting at the Memorial Library on Monday to discuss the closure.