Hall Lottery Success!

Bids for funding for Solar Storage Batteries approved!

Over the years, National Lottery Funding has been generous to Pelham Hall. 2008 saw a successful bid for £5000 for materials and labour “to improve facilities”. Three years later, another £5000 was granted towards the cost of loft insulation and the air source heat pump heating system in the bar area, whilst the installation of the disabled lift in 2019 was greatly assisted by a further grant of £10000.

It goes without saying that Pelham Hall is massively grateful to the National Lottery for these grants.

Since then, we have managed to fund other projects from other sources, one project being the installation of solar panels on the roof facing the cricket ground. These power the Hall successfully during daylight hours but evening electricity consumption has to come from the grid.

However, Treasurer Simon Angell has recently been steering a project to install battery storage so that daytime solar energy can be stored for usage in the evening. Batteries for this purpose, and the associated control kit, are large, not cheap and would normally be way beyond the Hall’s budget. So we put in a bid for funding to the National Lottery who very recently replied:

“We’re so happy to tell you we really liked your application for funding. And we want to give Solar Storage £20000 to help your community thrive.”

Simon adds that the battery is “to store and reuse our generated solar energy rather than exporting it to the grid.”

AONB bid successful too!

A second bid for the same project was lodged with the Wye Valley AONB, now re-branded as “National Landscape”, as matched funding to supplement the National Lottery grant and the sum of £5000 has been granted also.

Regular updates will be provided by Simon, as this project progresses.