COMMUNITIES in Dorset are being urged to take their fight to keep village halls alive to the very top.

Dorset Community Action (DCA) is urging volunteers to get behind a campaign to form an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on village halls.

The group would represent the interest of village halls and raise their profile at Westminster.

Jane Rogers, a member of Thornford’s village hall committee, said that it was a good idea.

“Village halls are often the only community buildings which are available to everyone, and they’re used for so many activities.

“In Thornford our hall is used for our playgroup, short mat bowls, Zumba, WI and parish council meetings amongst other things.”

DCA is calling on volunteers, hall users and community groups to lobby their MPs to support an APPG on village halls.

Research carried out by ACRE, the umbrella body which Dorset Community Action and England’s other 37 rural community councils belong to, shows that village hall use has trebled over the past 20 years.

Deborah Clarke, ACRE’s rural community buildings officer, said: “An APPG for village halls is a brilliant idea as it would allow campaign groups, charities, and other non-governmental organisations to become involved.”

The idea came out of a Radio 4 PM programme to set up an APPG on a subject suggested by listeners.

DCA chief executive Alex Picot added: “Commitment is now needed from the Government, local authorities and other policy-makers to work together nationally and locally to enable us and the other rural community councils to continue offering this vital support.”

DCA and ACRE are asking village hall volunteers to contact their local MP to ask them to lobby the PM programme to push village halls as an APPG topic.