Norton Village Hall business projections

Please click on the attachment below to see the ‘business projections’ document prepared by the Norton Village Hall Management Committee (NVHMC) for Norton Parish Council (NPC) pursuant of loan financing to fund the proposed extension and development project.

This is a 9-page document and it will give you relevant background and some project history, aspects of customer feedback, project ideas, and financial information in support of future business projections and profitability. 

Please note that that the NVHMC comprises volunteer trustees who manage the village hall within the auspices of the charitable trust (#1063062) registered at the Charity Commission. The charity is a ‘not for profit’ organisation, which doesn’t mean that the organisation can’t make profits, and indeed the village hall has made a profit for each of the last 10 years except for 2019-20 due to Covid closure. However, it does mean that profits are expected to be ploughed back into the organisation to cover repairs, maintenance, small project developments and refurbishments, and perhaps even salaries of employees should we reach that operational level as a Community Centre.

Should NPC successfully apply for a loan from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) it will have to tread carefully with regard to how the village hall’s profits are used. In this regard, recent notes in the Norton Messenger may require some clarification. The information insert (with the tear-off slip, which residents are asked to fill-in and return) suggests that any such loan will be paid off from village hall profits. But the minutes of a recent NPC meeting quoted in the same edition of the Messenger make it clear that if this route were to be adopted, then NPC would not be able to reclaim VAT on building costs. On a loan of £500,000 this would equate to a missed opportunity to reclaim £100,000, a sizable sum in any Parish Council business case.

For this reason, it would certainly be sensible to pay back the loan from a rise in your Precept (part of your Council Tax). NPC estimates that for a mid-range Council Tax bracket of something like £1,800-£2,000 per annum currently being paid, that increase in Precept would add something like £30-£40 pa to that bill, or £0.77p per week! Of course, these figures are only approximate, but they demonstrate the order of things.