A NEW community hall is on the cards for the Bentley to replace the current wooden building.Estimates put the cost at about £400,000 for a brick-built hall, with hall, meeting room, kitchen and toilet facilities.

A NEW community hall is on the cards for the Bentley to replace the current wooden building.

Estimates put the cost at about £400,000 for a brick-built hall, with hall, meeting room, kitchen and toilet facilities.

A feasibility study and designs for the hall have been produced with the help of a £5,000 grant from the Lottery's Awards for All scheme and from landfill tax credits from a landfill site near the village.

Now the trustees of the hall have applied for planning permission and village organisations that currently use it have been busy raising money towards the cost.

Pam Rayment, chair of the village hall committee, said their current wooden hall was reaching the end of its life.

She said: "The hall really is a lifeline. It's used by about 20 village groups. There is something going on in there every day."

She said the hall committee did not want to borrow money for a replacement and had decided that it would be easier to apply for lottery funding and other grants once it had received planning permission.