The group that run Cullingworth’s village hall, many of whom are in their 80s, are looking for young blood to help bring a new £500,000 community facility to the village.

The existing village hall was moved, piece by piece, to Station Road from the Damside area of Keighley in the 1970s, where it had stood for years as the citadel of the local Salvation Army.

Although it has served Cullingworth well for over 30 years, hosting countless community events, the wooden building is now nearing the end of its life.

Plans are underway to replace it with a much more modern building on land at the former Cullingworth First School site, behind the village medical practice.

The village hall committee held its annual meeting last week in the hope that more people showed interest in the idea, and dozens of villagers turned up.

Chairman Brian Hobson, 81, said: “There was a great deal of interest shown in setting up a new village hall.

“The present committee are mostly in their 80s so what we need is some new blood.

“At the meeting we had about a dozen younger people say they wanted to be part of a sub-committee to move forward with the new hall.

“When the Salvation Army building became vacant in Keighley a number of villagers raised money, went down and put parts of the building on a lorry. Now although the building is perfectly safe, the roof is bowed.”

They hope money for a new hall, estimated at around £500,000, will come from sources including the National Lottery and WREN, the landfill community fund.

The aim is to end up with a village hall similar to the one in Paull, a village near Hull that obtained funding to create a state of the art new community facility built with a similar amount of lottery funding.

He said: “It is the ideal site being in the middle of Cullingworth.

“The next thing to do will be to select an architect so we can get a design.

“If anyone else wants to get involved, the more the merrier.

“We need some professionals, I’m quite sure there are people in the village in the legal profession or who know more about planning issues that will be able to help us.”

He said once an architect was found the group would move forward with trying to obtain funding, and getting planning permission for a new building.

Anyone interested in joining the new committee can contact Mr Hobson on hobsonschoice2@talktalk.net or by calling (01535) 272704.