A PUBLIC meeting at Market Lavington on Tuesday night firmly set its face against selling off any land in the village to fund the proposed community centre.

Some speakers questioned why a new hall had to be built at all, and suggested refurbishing the old school building beside St Mary's Church, currently in use as a day centre.

Parish council chairman Peggy Jones said misleading information had been circulated in the village on a leaflet delivered to some houses, that accused the council of wanting to sell off land allocated for the community centre.

She said although the council purchased the land in 1991 with a £90,000 loan, it had been leased to the community hall trust, and it was its suggestion, following two failures to gain Lottery funding for the project, to sell off a corner of the site for housing to cover the shortfall.

Market Lavington has been without a village hall since the former hall was sold off to Dalecare nursing home in the 1990s.

Trust chairman Peter Furminger said it was an ambitious and expensive scheme designed to meet the needs of one of the largest villages in Kennet in the next 50 years.

A quantity surveyor had estimated building costs at £718,000. He said the trust had £110,000 and promises of grant aid of another £95,000. The sale of the land would accrue a further £300,000 to £400,000 and he was sure the Lottery would contribute £150,000 because so much had been raised by the village already.

But he said, if there was a shortfall in funding, the trust would "cut its cloth accordingly".

A villager said it would cost £330,000 to build a hall like that at West Lavington.

Kennet councillor Dr John Reid said a new community hall would be a source of pride for the village and would be self-financing.

But parish councillor Di Lunn disagreed. She said: "Perhaps we don't want a centre at all. We want a skate park." She said the village could build a smaller hall on the Grove Farm site on a self-build basis.

Mr Furminger said he was disappointed at the opposition.

"Perhaps those objecting don't have teenage children, or are single mums or are elderly. These are the people that would benefit."

Mrs Jones said the parish council was negotiating a five-year lease on the Old School, and would be exploring the possibility of buying it from the owners, the Radnor Trust.

A vote on whether the village would support the sale of land at the Grove Farm site found only five supporters, but when it was put that the money raised would be for the benefit of the village and just for the hall project, there was more support.

There was support for a scaled-down version of the scheme but few for leaving the site undeveloped.