In mid-December 2025, Burwash Parish Council held our inaugural meeting for the Burwash Village Hall Committee. There weren’t many of us; the Clerk to the Council was present taking minutes and giving advice, and there was a parishioner who uses the hall regularly as a member of a club. The numbers were not important. The point was that we were all there because we believe the Village Hall matters and that it has a vital role to play at the heart of our village life.
There’s a lot going on at our Full Council meetings right now. Front and centre of much thinking and discussion concerns an initiative at first referred to as the new Community Hub but lately renamed the Community Build Project. In short, we have Parish Rooms that have seen better days. Getting this matter addressed means there’s been – and continues to be – exploration of various avenues: a big vision ‘grand design’ of a multi-purpose, architect-designed, modular Community Hub, costing the best part of a couple of million at one end of the scale, to a more modest solution at the other end – which is to say, a refurbishment of the currently rundown brick build toilet block, together with some sort of small new building for a parish office.
There are advocates for all pathways but it would be fair, I think, to say that there will be no ignoring economic realities of where the UK now is. As one Councillor has said to me, what we want and at we need are two different things, and ultimately it will come down to money. This is true. What is also true is that the district council at Rother and the county council in Lewes are strapped for cash. I put it mildly.
The parish, which is home to some three and a half thousand people, has three centres: Burwash, Burwash Weald and Burwash Common. Between these places there is a Sports Pavilion, Parish Rooms, a Village Hall, and another Pavilion. For some, there is no need for there to be considerable spending on anything, given the facilities that already exist. For others, there is the imperative to be as ambitious as possible in the vision for the village, applying therefore for whatever funding is possible, borrowing as necessary and using these financial resources alongside what is already in the council’s savings. Some have anxieties about the lost opportunity to build something that is part of a long term, forward-thinking vision simply because there are excessive concerns over money. Others fear that in the current climate, with the country in so much eye watering debt, it is unconscionable to spend money that is not necessary – because this will leave future generations with appalling financial and economic burdens.
So where does the Village Hall fit in? The answer is that is likely to be a greater part of the mix going forward. The year after next our handsome building will be 120 years old so will almost certainly be in the running for consideration for a Heritage grant. There is a large main room with a stage, a smaller meeting room, changing rooms, a kitchen, and a snooker room. Early discussion has centred on our looking at ways to maximise its use throughout morning, afternoon and evening slots. There was consensus that the building needs a bit of an upgrade, a little more TLC, if it is to attract more hirers.
It was only a first meeting, but there is, I believe, a shared enthusiasm to see the Village Hall fulfil its potential. This means looking after the current hirers and bringing in new ones. In a digital world where cyberspace is increasingly colonising the physical realm (struggling high streets and town centres as people shop online), what a great opportunity to develop a vibrant, real place, at the heart of the village. To bring together parishioners of different generations. To host events and clubs that are creative and cultural. After all, Burwash comes with one of those lovely brown signs declaring it a Historic Village, complete with its own literary icon in Rudyard Kipling. Already I’m starting to have visions of book clubs, film screenings, fund raising quiz nights, cookery sessions for youngsters in the kitchen. Oh and maybe a pool table, and perhaps some darts boards in that back room. At the very least it’d be a place to connect, to make friends, to get teens off their screens. Or it might just nurture the next Luke Littler….
Cllr Julie Lynn
December 2025
