One of UK's richest villages receives levelling-up grant

Cranleigh has won £307k for improvements to its village hall

- ALEX ROSS

It's a charming village at the foot of the Surrey Hills featuring a quaint high street with many independent cafes and shops. Surrounded by beautiful countryside and a short journey from Guildford railway station with links into London, Cranleigh is unsurprisingly a sought-after location for commuters working in the capital.

There is a good private school – Cranleigh School – and a vibrant community with well-run clubs offering everything from ballet to choral singing. There’s even an M&S. Demand to reside in the village, said to be the largest in England, saw the average detached home fetch £843k last year. And so it might have raised a few eyebrows when the community was awarded a £307k taxpayer-funded levelling-up grant for improvements to its 1933-built village hall.

The successful bid from Cranleigh Parish Council was under the Community Ownership Fund, set up to “empower communities in left-behind places to level up”, according to one of its four objectives. The fund was also introduced to provide cash to help save key assets such as village halls and pubs, and to strengthen communities through thriving facilities. In Cranleigh, the parish council said it needs the money to update the existing layout of the village hall, which it says is designed for “an era of tea dances and large assemblies”. The council was eligible to apply.

On winning the bid, among those first to congratulate the council was chancellor Jeremy Hunt. On Instagram, he wrote: “Brilliant to learn from Angela Richardson (MP for Guildford) that £307,754 has been awarded to Cranleigh Village Hall from the Community Ownership Fund scheme, through the Department for Levelling Up. Great news for Cranleigh!”