Highlights: Functional blockwork for the base of the hall walls has been completed, with the decorative front blocks now started. Borehole for the heat pump is to be drilled next week. GreenHeat assure us that there is no risk to neighbouring buildings. Committee discussed reinstating decorating stone panels on the front face of the hall. Committee agree to shorten OCA SCIO’s financial year for 2025/26 as a one-off action during the usual period of the hall build.
Hall Build – Week 19
More blockwork and pipes this week… Three courses of blocks are now all but complete around the main outer wall, and this brings us up to what will be the final internal floor height. We have drainage pipes buried around the outside of the main wall footings for rain and waste water. We have super-insulated pipes (the big grey ones with two pink ones in the middle) in place under the blockwork, which will be what carries hot water from our heat pump to the underfloor heating and our hot taps. And we have internal rooms nearly full mapped out with blockwork, including linteled gaps in the ladies bathroom wall where the loos will be!
Hall Build – Week 18
A busy week for blockwork! Blocks for the three base courses all around the hall were delivered and largely installed this week. Extensions to foundations were completed and the steelwork bases were permanently sealed with concrete. Delivery was also taken of the decorative buff natural stone that will be the visible outer to the base layers of the wall below the final timber cladding.
Hall Build – Week 17
Steelwork done, TRF are back on site and pressing on with the next stages! This week, the central access road that had been laid across the green was reduced in height to match the new level of the foundations behind. A couple of extensions to the foundation concrete were made, and ducting was laid for power and heating connections between the main hall building and the outbuilding at the west end. Blocks were delivered for the first layers of our walls!
Next stages are excavating and laying foundations for the outbuilding and getting some blocks laid on the main hall!
Committee meeting, April 7th 2026
Highlights: The steel frame for the hall is up! OCA are to confirm a couple of aesthetic choices for the hall – namely, the roof colour and choice of stone for some areas of detailing. OCA are working with SORELL and ELCC to coordinate our responses to the Reporter re. Springfield Solar Farm. Suggestion made to get a stone sundial for the village hall carved by community members!
Hall Build – Week 15
Well it’s been very quiet for a few weeks while we waiting for the steel to manufactured but it was all action this week! Our steel frame was delivered on Tuesday and by the end of Thursday it was all up! OCA went down to the site on Wednesday lunch time, expecting to see maybe one or two posts up, but guys on site already had all the vertical posts in place! There was a bit of a wait for a cherry picker before they could do the higher horizontals, but by the end of week, our new hall was suddenly very much visible…
Committee meeting, March 3rd 2026
Highlights: SPEN have connected power to the temporary box that will server TRF during the build, but we don’t yet have a meter installed. Final design tweaks for the hall steelwork are underway!
Hall Build – Week 09
Not much has changed on site this week, but that doesn’t mean that TRF have been on holiday! All the progress at the moment is behind the scenes. After the steel company scanned the new foundations last week, they’ve been away finalising the designs. For those interested in a bit of a technical detail, we can now share the final designs below! We should start to see real visible progress early next month…
Hall Build – Week 08
It’s been a relatively quiet week. While the concrete of the foundations is now set and level, we have a bit of a pause while the final tweaks are done to the design of the steel frame. This comes after the steel company came to site to scan the final real position of the foundations for tolerance checks. All approved, and progress is being made behind the scenes for steel going up in the next 2 or 3 weeks! In the meantime, SPEN have been on site again and we have the (third…) final junction box in place for the build team to take their power from. Our architects from CSY joined OCA and TRF on site for a slightly soggy monthly progress meeting…!
OCA and OCA SCIO AGMs, February 8th 2026
Highlights: Original OCA is still hanging on, due to difficulties in the OSCR processes to close it, but we expect this to be the final OCA AGM.
OCA SCIO reported that the land purchase for the hall has been made and the old hall has been demolished. CWP Energy are fully funding the build of the new hall. Our Community Benefit Fund, invested on the Quilter Investment Platform has seen excellent growth this year. Village hall build progress presentation was made, as well as a summary of Community Priorities for ELCC. The Springfield Solar Farm was noted to be going to a Public Enquiry.