VOLUNTEERS who run a community hall have been told by council bosses they will need to pay for repairs or leave the premises.

The Holland-on-Sea Community Hall Association met with Tendring councillors last week to discuss the management of the hall.

Tendring Council issued a 20-year lease for the hall, which expired in 2012.

In 2014, Tendring Council surveyed the building and decided external repairs were needed however these were not completed.

Another survey was conducted in 2022 with the building in worse condition and Tendring Council is set to issue the community hall association with a new agreement handing over responsibility for internal and external repairs.

A hall user said: “The hall has been part of our community since at least the 1940s.

“The footfall at the hall is 1,600 people a month which is huge, more than 30 groups meet here monthly so it would be devastating if the building became derelict and out of use.”

An initial meeting was held between Tendring Council and the community hall association on November 30 in which the council presented two options.

Option one was to agree to the amended heads of terms agreement and the second option would be to vacate the premises at which point Tendring Council would sort out the repairs and look to lease the hall to a tenant who would pay the full repairing lease.

Carlo Guglielmi, Tendring Council's cabinet member responsible for corporate finance and governance said: “We have been negotiating with the current tenants for several years now and are offering a reasonable rent rate based on a 2015 valuation.

“To help further we have proposed a gradual, stepped introduction of rent payments over a few years to give them time to find the funds – and also offering access, subject to eligibility, to our rent off-setting scheme for community groups which would cap the rent payable at 25 per cent of the market value.

“We appreciate what an asset this hall is to the local community, which is why we have been working so hard to get a new lease agreed.”