A COMMUNITY group seeking lottery funding to build a new village hall has been told its chances are slim.

The group, in Broom, wants to demolish the existing wooden village hall and replace it with a brick, multi-purpose building and hoped to get a £195,000 grant from the lottery fund.

But it seems the village population does not fit the criteria.

At a pre-application meeting, committee representative Cheryl Hendy was told 90 per cent of the lottery money goes to projects which fall into one of 12 priority groups.

Six of these are geographical and cover Tamworth, Cannock Chase, north Solihull, Newcastle under Lyme, Walsall and Dudley.

The other six are children and young people, areas going through social or economic change, older people and their carers, disabled people and their carers, black and minority ethnic groups and refugees and asylum seekers.

The remaining 10 per cent is oversubscribed - last year's applications totalled £46m for a pot of £19.5m.

Undeterred, the committee is still planning to apply and will be seeking other sources of funding.

So far, members have raised £3,000 and had small grants, including £2,500 from Bidford Parish Council.

The next fund-raising event is a Racketts gig at the end of the month at the Greig Centre.