Campaigners plan blueprint for Water Lane United Reformed Church Hall and have it included in East Herts Council's Old River Lane cinema-led arts project

Campaigners battling to save a community hall from demolition are preparing a blueprint which could see it included in East Herts Council's Old River Lane (ORL) arts project in Bishop's Stortford.

An action group made up of Bishop's Stortford Civic Federation (BSCF), the nine-member strong Bishop's Stortford Arts Forum and a cross-party working group has launched a campaign to halt plans to flatten Water Lane United Reformed Church Hall and relocate 50 Waitrose parking spaces to the cleared site.

BSCF was successful in its application to EHC to have the hall designated as an asset of community value (ACV), which campaigners see as the first step in saving it.

The ACV means the hall is a building whose main use or purpose is furthering the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community and could do so into the future.

Campaigners say this designation adds to the protection already given by Local Plan policy CFLR8 Loss of Community Facilities. This states that loss of buildings or land for community use will be refused unless it is no longer needed; it would be replaced by an enhanced facility; or it would be replaced by another needed community use – none of which they say is met.

EHC intends to transfer the site to ORL developer Cityheart and the authority’s planning guidance (Supplementary Planning Document or SPD) is expected to be published at the end of October. The civic federation has asked that the SPD recognises the hall’s status as an ACV.

The next stage for campaigners is to pursue a new vision for a flexible arts space for performance, exhibitions, workshops and events, with the key objective being to make it an integral part of the ORL scheme.

BSCF chair Paul Dean said: "The imperative is to get the local planning authority to state in the SPD guidance that the hall should be retained for community use and local character reasons, and to show imaginative options for planning development without encroaching the Waitrose car park."

The group says the hall is not only a well-used centre of community life – currently the venue for the monthly Laughing Bishops Comedy Club and occasional music gigs – but part of the rich character of Water Lane and North Street.

Gailie Anderson, of the arts forum, said: "The hall is a great space with scope for many kinds of performance and events. Some relatively small physical changes could transform it into a multi-use creative space and link it to ORL.

"We are preparing a business plan to illustrate how the hall would be used and prove itself to be self-sustaining. A potential future programme would involve theatre workshops, rehearsals and concerts involving Bishop's Stortford Sinfonia, the choral society and other arts forum groups."

The original scheme for the project to regenerate the Causeway area was for a cultural quarter with a 544-seat theatre, built in partnership with the town council, at the heart of a £30m leisure facility. It would include 150 homes, retail and commercial accommodation alongside a public space called Waytemore Square and a new woodland area.

But last year a behind-closed-doors meeting of EHC agreed to downgrade the project from having a theatre to a five-screen cinema after it was revealed the Covid-19 pandemic had severely hit the authority's finances.

Loss of the hall is not the only issue in the ORL development concerning the campaigners. BSCF, alongside the arts forum and cross-party working group, say they will continue to push for a review of the whole ORL masterplan "in the interests of getting the most appropriate scheme for the town".