Save Rock Hall campaigners hope to take ownership of the building

Rock Hall  in Moses Gate Country Park is at risk of being lost forever if it is left as it is.

Now the charity behind plans to bring it back in use is to take ownership of and start work to prevent further deterioration of  the building.

Charity Banana Enterprise have received funding from the government to ffurther their plans.

The plans suffered a blow last year after the Heritage Lottery rejected a  a multi-million bid to make it a community asset to be used by all.

But a new bid is being drawn up for the hall which was built in 1807 by the Crompton family of papermakers.

Jayne Allman, the charity’s CEO, said: “We are so excited about our charity, Banana Enterprise Network, being awarded £295,000 funding for our Rock Hall project, by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities as part of the Governments Community Ownership Fund (COF) programme.

“The next stage is that we will be sent our funding contract and then once that is signed, we can get started. The £295,000 must be spent by December.

Banana Enterprise Network are doing everything they can to Save Rock Hall (Image: Banana Enterprise Network)

“We are working towards hopefully taking ownership this year of the Hall and undertaking initial restoration work to make the building secure and habitable, so that we can try to prevent further deterioration.

“There’s a long way to go though, with various legal processes to go through including the CAT transfer (community asset transfer) and planning permission, all subject to council approvement.

“We will also be holding extensive public consultation work to gain community feedback on our future proposals for the hall.

“By taking ownership of the hall this year, whilst it is a risk for our charity as we haven’t got the substantial funding we need for the overall project, now around £3.7million but could change, the risk can be managed.

“We are also looking at phasing the project over more time.

Banana Enterprise Network have shared their plans for Rock Hall (Image: Newsquest)

“There are also various benefits that this ownership would bring, for example, it opens up other potential opportunities for funding from funders who need us to own the building before we can apply to them.”

Jayne said the new funding is welcome and they will also be re-applying for funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund this year.

She said: “We applied for £4million to the Heritage Lottery Fund and it was rejected due to something that was out of our control.

“The Heritage Fund strongly urged us to reapply though which is what we are doing this year.

“This time, as we have been successful in obtaining the £295,000, we will not need to apply for as much as we did last year to the Heritage Fund.

“After the disappointment of being rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund last September, we want to try to create every opportunity we can to find funders who can support the project as our charity has already lost a lot of money working on the project.”