A CHURCH is celebrating a massive £500,000 grant to create a community hub.

The Parochial Church Council at St Nicholas Church in Tolleshunt Major has been given the cash by Big Lottery Fund’s reaching communities programme.

The money will be spent on redeveloping and improving the village rooms attached to the church in an attempt to make them a community hub.

One of the driving minds behind the process was Sarah Case, of the Parochial Church Council.

She said: “The hall area is going to be made a lot bigger. We are going to have heating, hot water, a new kitchen and toilet facilities.

“The hall will be completely renovated. We ate having a new roof on the building and we are going to have new disabled parking bays out the front for residents.

“We are a small village and don’t have many buses, so what we are trying to do is make this a hub for the community.

“We already have a lot of clubs that operate out of the village hall. The hope is that with a bigger and better venue we can hopefully attract more clubs and offer people in the area more things to do.”

The church council began the bidding process nearly three years ago, and Sara said she was delighted to finally hear the bid was successful.

She said: “It was very exciting. It has been a long process. We have gone through three different stages and spoken to pretty much every residents in the village to get their views.”

The church was also granted £17,000 in November by the fund, in order to help build up the application.

The Church Council is hopeful of having builders on site to begin the work by January 9 next year.

Members are aiming to have the job completed by the end of July 2017.