Village and Community Halls: Guide to Surveys
Volunteers managing rural community buildings are being provided with guidance to help them commission the right type of building survey.
A new guide commissioned by ACTion with Communities in Cumbria (Cambridgeshire ACRE’s equivalent organisation in Cumbria) and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund has just been published, following a discovery that there was variable knowledge amongst funders, surveyors and village hall committees about what was needed and required in procuring and carrying out surveys of village halls and similar rural community buildings.
The new guide has been authored by Ben Stagg, Director of stagg architects who wrote ACRE’s net zero design guide in 2024.
The guidance takes a hall committee through the benefits of obtaining a survey, explains different types of surveys and how to go about engaging a surveyor. The section for surveyors will be useful for hall committees to share when commissioning their surveyor. There is also a comprehensive chapter on energy surveys.
Surveys are important because they help ensure a community building is kept in a good condition and that alteration and improvement work is appropriate and beneficial. They don’t just describe the existing situation; they can also be used to identify improvement works and assess and evaluate recommendations.
Download the new guide here:
