Plans to more than double the size of Picket Piece’s village hall have taken a step forward after it was granted planning permission by Test Valley Borough Council (TVBC).

Under the plans, two new halls will be added to the existing building, with each to have its own dedicated servery. A new car park will be built behind the hall, while bike racks will be provided.

Other improvements include air conditioning, and the proposed connection of the hall to the main sewerage system.

However, the applicant for the plans, Simon Potter, said that the plans were still “a long way off” from becoming a reality.

A village hall in Picket Piece has existed since 1948, with the first hall an asbestos nissen hut with outside toilets. In 1985, the hut was replaced by a new hall opened by Lord Denning, with a Picket Piece youth group allowed to spray paint the inside of the original hall before it was demolished.

Plans for the new hall have been in the air for several years, with advice for the works sought in 2017. Formal plans were submitted in 2018, but withdrawn after concerns about the provision of new parking and noise from the hall.

The most recent iteration of the proposals, submitted in 2019, plan for a new annexe to be constructed, with the existing hall being extended. A removable partition wall will be installed to allow this space to be split up, while the current members room will be extended into another hall.

New toilets and serveries will be created in the plans, with a decked outside area behind the hall leading into a new car park. Air conditioning will be installed behind planting to limit the noise of the units, while the hall is proposed to be connected to the sewer after the pipes were extended by Southern Water.

Following modification of the plans, they were approved by TVBC on March 8.

However, Simon Potter says that the plans still require a lot of work to come to fruition, with negotiations required with regional and national bodies.

“We’re a long way off achieving what we’d like to achieve,” he told the Advertiser. “This has been in the mixer for six or seven years, and we’re nowhere near pushing it over the line”.

“It’s still embryonic to the point of which we’ve got a meeting with TVBC in four weeks to try and work out how we can move it forward.”