Hall to play for as row hots up

THERE is a lovely parquet floor inside the main room of Haxby's Memorial Hall. David Roberts, chairman of the hall's trustees, admits it is nice. "People would look at that and say 'what's wrong with it?'" he says.

"There's nothing wrong with it. But the roof leaks. We have problems with security. Kids climbed on to the roof, they made a hole, water poured through, went through the electrics and we had to close the hall down."

Security and leaky roofs are two of many problems with a building that, the trustees say, is falling to bits. They commissioned a survey by Leeds-based Atkins Design which contains 11 pages of problems. These range from slipped, cracked and missing tiles on the main roof, to a leaky flat roof on the 'new' 24-year-old extension, rotten window-frames, a cracked and bulging parapet wall, and cracks in the extension.

The building, a former school which after the Second World War was dedicated as a memorial to the dead of both wars, is not beyond saving, the trustees accept.

But the total cost of putting everything right, including improvements to the car park and outbuildings at the back, is estimated at £235,000. Adapting the hall to comply with new disabled access regulations would cost a further £50,000. Add on VAT, and you're looking at £350,000.

And for what? Essentially for nothing, argues fellow trustee Jen Challinor. "We'd be back to square one. We'd not have provided a single new room. We'd have spent £350,000 to patch it up, and then somebody else would have the same problem in 20 or 30 years time. We don't want that."

The trustees' vision for the hall is altogether more grand. With the consent of the people of Haxby, they would like to pull it down - and replace it with a modern building that would, Jen Challinor says, last for 100 years.

The trustees have already secured £200,000 of 'pump priming' from City of York Council for a large new building on the site of the existing hall. This would incorporate the Haxby library, a caf, a large central atrium, a main multi-functional hall, plus changing rooms, a new kitchen, a banqueting room and plenty of office space.

Jen Challinor insists it would be a building with the wow factor. It would form a natural focus for the whole community for years to come - and would be a place where young couples would be proud to be married. Unlike, she says, the present shabby hall.

Not everyone agrees. The proposals have prompted one of the biggest protests in Haxby's recent history, with opponents claiming the scheme would be a waste of mone and an insult to Haxby's war dead. They also point out it would replace one of the community's few remaining historic buildings with what one Evening Press correspondent in tonight's letters column describes as a "glass carbuncle".

As that last comment implies, part of the problem is the nature of the building the trustees propose to put up. They would like the new hall to be built by Huf Haus, a futuristic firm that makes ultra-modern glass and timber homes using post-and beam architecture.

"This timber frame concept frees the designer of the constraints of load-bearing (and thus dividing) walls," says Huf's website. "It gives Huf designs their unrivalled breadth, openings and vast spaces."

The firm once featured on Channel 4's Grand Designs programme, which was what prompted trustees to approach Huf.

Mr Roberts went to the company's UK headquarters in Leatherhead and was hugely impressed. Opponents of the scheme who worry about having a glass building in the middle of Haxby have got it all wrong, he insists. The building's panels could be made of glass, yes: but they could also be made of wood or brick, or whatever the people of Haxby wanted.

The key thing, however, Mr Roberts stresses, is that no decision has yet been made.

The trustees considered four options for the building's future. These were;

Do nothing (cost: nothing)

Repair the hall and adapt it for disabled access (cost: £350,000)

Retain the exterior of the old hall, but modernise it inside and extend it backwards (cost: unknown, but considerable)

Have a new Huf hall (cost: between £1million and £2million, says Mr Roberts).

The trustees plan to consult on all of these when they write to the people of Haxby later this summer, inviting them to say which of the four options they prefer.

The consultation will, however, make it clear that the first two options "are not sensible", Mr Roberts says.

Huf has been asked to come up with a scheme for retaining the faade of the existing hall, and modernising and extending it. Its proposals have not yet been received, Mr Roberts says, but he believes it could be a much more complex job than just keeping the skin of the building.

The trustees' consultation will also make clear that option four, the new Huf hall, is their "preferred option". Worries that such a new building would be a desecration of a war memorial are nonsense, Mr Roberts insists. The building was originally a school, and was only dedicated as a memorial after the last war. The dedication plaque and the coronation clock could both be incorporated into the new building.

But what if, after all the trustees had to say, the people of Haxby still overwhelmingly rejected the new building? "We would obviously have to go along with that," Mr Roberts says. "But we cannot keep on doing 'don't, don't, don't'," says Jen Challinor. "It has to be 'do, do, do'!"

:: "It might be fantastic in Manchester, but not in the middle of Haxby"

CAREN Vollans insists she's got nothing against progress - so long as it is in the right place. She simply thinks the centre of Haxby isn't right for the kind of modernistic building the Memorial Hall trustees are considering.

"I hate it!" she says. "It might be fantastic in Manchester, but not in the middle of Haxby. We have lost so much of our history. I'm not opposed to redevelopment or modernisation, but what I am opposed to is taking away more of our history. We have lost so many of our old buildings to new estates. We need to hold on to something."

Caren is chair of the Haxby Playgroup - one of the main users of the existing hall - and insists she is not alone. Judging by the volume of protest letters written to the Press, she is justified in that claim. A week ago, we carried a story about a petition protesting against plans to demolish the hall that was signed by more than 1,000 people. Already, that petition has grown to 1,500, Caren says.

She has lived in Haxby all her life and is outraged at what she sees as an insult to the town's war dead. Just sticking the old plaque on the front of a new building would not be the same, she says.

She also happens to love the Memorial Hall building itself. "The trustees are saying it has no architectural merit," she says. "But I think that building is beautiful. The way it says 'boys' and 'girls' on the outside is fabulous, so quirky, so Haxby."

She sees no need to move the town library from its present location opposite Ralph Butterfield School - in fact, having a big, busy, multi-purpose modern building right in the centre of the community would only add to traffic congestion, she says.

She insists the kind of modernistic glass building the trustees are proposing would be wrong for use by children. They could be watched, she says, by anybody.

She would like to see plans for a scheme to retain the outside of the building, but to modernise and extend the inside. "We want to keep the front faade, but they could put an extra hall in."

So far, the trustees have not been able to produce such plans, she says. "But I'm sure they could refurbish and extend and develop that building for half of what they will spend to build a new one."

She also wonders just how the trustees plan to raise more than £2m. Caren says locals are more likely to swing behind the scheme and help with fund-raising if the trustees just listen, and do what the local people want: which is keep, or refurbish, the old building.

"People would be happy to fund-raise then," she says. "They won't at the moment, because they don't want what they are doing."

:: What is now the Haxby Memorial Hall was originally built in 1876 as a school to replace a former village school. It was extended in 1903 to include a new infant department. The clock on the front was added to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII in 1902.

In 1954, following the opening of the Ralph Butterfield School, it was bought by the then Haxby Parish Council, which converted it and dedicated it as a Memorial Hall to the dead of both world wars.

Since then, the hall has been used for a range of village activities. In 1977, ownership was transferred to the Haxby Memorial Hall Trust. The hall was refurbished, and flat-roofed extensions added at a cost of £83,000 in 1981.

Those extensions are now in as bad condition as the rest of the building, according to Jen Challinor, of the Haxby Memorial Hall Trust - and are a warning against trying to repair or maintain the building on the cheap.

After what Memorial Hall trustees chairman David Roberts describes as the "cumulative failure" of a previous trust committee, the problems with the hall came to light two years ago, following a meeting in the town.

Since then, members of the trust say they have been considering various options for the hall's future - including demolishing it and replacing it with a new building.

Simply doing nothing is not an option, says Jen Challinor. Bookings are falling because the building is in such a poor state, and so the building is operating at a loss. The problems facing it will only get worse until someone grasps the nettle. Opponents such as caren Vollans disagree, claiming the main reason for falling bookings is the uncertainty over the hall's future.

Updated: 09:27 Wednesday, August 10, 2005